


Feast of the Twisted Beast

by ChromeHoplite, m_aruka



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Angst, Designer!Sebastian, Enemies to Lovers, Hate fucking, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Makeovers, Mild Gore, Mile High Club, Model!Ciel, Murder, Murder Mystery, Public Sex, SebaCiel - Freeform, Sebastian isn't exactly human, Sex Club, Size Difference, Threesome - M/M/M, Wet Dream, alexander mcqueen inspired, identity theft, kind of like princess diaries with smut murder and snark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:47:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23356441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChromeHoplite/pseuds/ChromeHoplite, https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_aruka/pseuds/m_aruka
Summary: In the year since his twin has been reported missing, Ciel Phantomhive has been trying to discover the identity of his brother's killer.In the year since his muse has been reported missing, eccentric designer Sebastian Michaelis has been plotting a fashion revolution.The only way either man is to succeed is by pretending the twin has returned to assume his reign over the runway.If fashion is armour, both Ciel and Sebastian will need to prepare for war.
Relationships: Agni/Soma Asman Kadar, Sebastian Michaelis/Ciel Phantomhive
Comments: 85
Kudos: 200





	1. The Devil Wears Himself

**Author's Note:**

>   
> 
> 
> Title: Époque, October Issue  
> By: [M](https://paradixenfer.tumblr.com/)  
> 
> 
> _"Give me time and I'll give you a revolution." - Alexander McQueen_  
> 
> 
> Musical Inspiration: [Like It Or Not by Madonna](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLcLckQ51Fo&feature=youtu.be)

Ciel's galoshes pounded the pavement, a third of a percussive trio along with the pelting rain and his drumming heart. He knew all three were measured: soles thinned, skies spent their fury and heartbeats ultimately ran out. 

“But not yet,” he begged, panting, doubled over, clutching the stitch at his left side. His soaked messenger bag felt like an anchor around his neck, pulling him closer to the potholed pavement. He’d stopped two buildings short of his Hackney home, a dingy flat set over a sex shop called _Buckingham Phallus_ that doubled as an illicit massage parlour. Someone waited there, closer to the door that led upstairs to his flat than the one embellished with a black and white poster running its length, advertising: _Dolls, Mags, Toys, Lube, Videos and More!_

Even through the thick sheets of rain, Ciel could see that the man didn’t belong there. He stood out, a ship among the shoals, except in this case the shoal was more of a neon-tarnished, smog-polluted, plague-pitted quagmire. This had his brother’s stink all over it. Who else but _his people_ would skulk about the London slums wearing bespoke?

Were it not so late, or the showers not so heavy, Ciel might have considered walking past, pretending he didn’t live there. But he was cold, and wet, and tired, having worked a twelve-hour shift to cover another barista, for the third day in a row. The extra money would help; he had back rent to pay, utilities for the coming month, a bike he was saving up for… as long as he didn’t die of pneumonia first. 

On cue, he coughed into his elbow, catching his glasses as they slid down his nose. There was no point cleaning them off with his jacket, the military canvas was sopped and waterlogged. He sighed, pushing the hair that had escaped his messy bun from his face. With feigned confidence, he marched to his door, nearly tripping over a soggy box someone had left for him. 

A creeping blush burned its way up his face as he caught himself on the door. Ciel grimaced, muttering a string of curses under his breath. He was determined now more than ever not to make eye contact with the stranger, a task made easier by the fact that the black, semi-transparent umbrella the man held was low, concealing his eyes. Not only that, but it also deflected the vivid pinks and purples of nearby signs, blatantly throwing them back at Ciel. 

He kept his head down, one hand fumbling with the keyset, the other arm trying to imprison the squishy package. At the same time, it became increasingly challenging to ignore the glistening of light on patent leather shoes in his periphery, especially when his own sneakers continued to submit his feet to trial by drowning. It took him an embarrassingly long time to stick the right key into the lock, perhaps because of his audience, perhaps because of the distracting, pungent scent of cigarette slithering its way into his already flared nostrils. The spicy blend commingled with a decadent cologne that irritated Ciel’s throat and tightened his chest. 

“Do you mind? I have asthma,” he snapped. Lies. Kind of. He’d traded asthma for panic attacks at the age of eighteen, and he wasn’t sure which he preferred. 

Under the umbrella, the stranger snorted. At his feet, a carrier meowed. “Shhh… don’t worry, my darling,” the man crooned attractively to the unseen cat, crouching low to soothe her through the holes of a gaudy, monogrammed carrier. “I’m sure he’s not as uncivilized as he appears, he’ll soon invite us in.” 

“Don’t hold your breath,” Ciel said, finally unjamming the lock with a sharp twist of his wrist. The heat of the indoors hit him like a welcomed punch to the face. Stepping over the threshold was like invading a new dimension, albeit one ruled by cheap air fresheners barely camouflaging the lingering stench of mould and mildew. It didn’t matter, it was home, and all that stood between himself and sinking his teeth into the day-old donut smooshed in his messenger bag was a sleek Italian shoe wedged between the door and the frame. “What the--”

Ashen wisps of cigarette smoke vaguely clouded the stranger’s features as he tipped his umbrella back. For all the drama that seemed to cling to the man, Ciel thought the reveal was rather anti-climatic; especially when all he could make out of the face were the deeply-tinted sunglasses he wore. At night. In a rainstorm. 

“Dude, are you high?” Ciel asked, giving the intruding shoe quick, successive punts to dislodge it from the entrance. 

The man took a final drag from his cigarette, then tossed the butt into a nearby puddle. He fingered the frame of his sunglasses, perching them on his nose and took a long, hard look at the resident over the lenses. “These,” he said, so revolted he seemed to be chewing the word, “are Givenchy and they’re worth more than the sum of your belongings.” As added punctuation, the umbrella snapped shut. The man picked up his carrier and with his shoulder, pushed his way through, letting the door slam behind him.

“What about banshees?” Ciel mumbled, his unblinking eyes following the stranger up the sixteen steps that led to his flat. Warning bells went off in his head by the dozens. Instinctively, he smoothed his left side in anticipation of acute phantom pain. It came, coinciding with a sharp intake of breath the moment the back of his heels made contact with the door. 

Having ascended the flight of stairs, the man removed a crimson, mulberry silk kerchief from his pocket and used it to turn the handle. “You know, if I wanted you hurt, I would have sent someone to do it in my stead, Phantomhive. I’m a very busy man with no time for such nonsense.”

“Yeah?” Ciel said suspiciously, staring daggers at the carrier. For all he knew there was a firearm in there. Maybe some chlorophyll? A scalpel? 

“Indeed. I’m ill-prepared to touch you in any capacity, given that I’ve left my hazmat suit in my jet.” 

Ciel ignored the jab, too self-conscious of his shivering. He hoped it would be interpreted as chilled rather than fearsome, given that he was soaked from head to toe. What little nerve he had was summoned once his breathing evened out and he could make sure he absolutely wouldn’t stutter. “Dump out your carrier. I’m not going up there until I see what you’ve got in there, first.” 

The man stiffened and stood taller, looking positively affronted. Here was an individual used to barking orders rather than following them. “Excuse me?” 

“I’m counting to three, and then I’m calling the cops,” Ciel threatened, his hand flying to his jacket pocket, pretending to fill his palm with a phone he didn’t have. 

“Very well,” the stranger sighed, unfastening the carrier’s latch. Out sauntered a regal Turkish angora with fur so white it was almost luminescent. It walked circles around its owner, fluffy tail winding itself possessively against his legs. Ciel could hear purring from where he stood at the foot of the stairs, until the cat noticed his presence. Immediately, it fell silent, face slipping into a mirrored mask of utmost discontent shared by its keeper. 

“Happy, now?”

“No,” Ciel pokerfaced, “turn the carrier over.”

Behind his sunglasses, the man’s eyes widened, his eyebrows shot up, barely wrinkling his forehead. Outraged verbalization was kept at a minimum, but Ciel did not miss the curse taking shape on the man’s lips. Nothing but a small pouch, no bigger than three fingers, slipped out, hitting the floor with a muted thud.

“It’s to calm her nerves,” the man explained nonchalantly. “Sniff it if you want. It’s dried chamomile.” 

“Like hell, I will. Kick it down here, then empty out your jacket.” 

“Are you mad? Do you even hear yourself?” The man challenged, still doing as he was told. “Do you know where I got this lighter? It’s a custom-made torch Zippo. Can you see it with those Coke bottle glasses?” More questions as he held it up so that it glinted in the drop light overhead. He directed a burning stare at the floor where Ciel stood, looking for all the world as if he would like nothing more than for it to open up and swallow the boy whole. “de la Renta left it for me in his last will and testament, among other things…” 

Ciel shrugged apathetically, nodding for the man to deposit the lighter just out of his reach. It was soon joined by an elegant, leather-clasped cigarette case, a glass-titanium vial and an ornate pocket watch. Each item had its own uninteresting story. Each was laid upon the floor as if it was a gift to baby Jesus. 

“There,” the man said with an air of exasperated finality. “Satisfied?”

With a quick shake of the head, Ciel pointed to the man’s breast pocket. There was a faint outline, long and barrel-shaped. Thick too. That wasn’t a normal gun and tasers weren’t that big. For the briefest of moments, he almost regretted aggravating the stranger. He found the door handle behind his back, his knuckles going white with his grip, then lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper, “There are no concealed carry laws in the U.K.” 

A devious smirk flashed across the stranger’s wide, sensual mouth, “Don’t you worry about what I’m packing. It’ll be more than happy to keep its distance from you.” He reached into his jacket and withdrew a rolled-up magazine, tossing it at Ciel. 

His hands came up reflexively to catch it, but as physically inept as he was, he merely fumbled it like a hot potato and let it fall to the floor. 

Neurologists say that in the span of a single heartbeat, the brain is capable of compensating for missing information by filling in blanks based on an individual’s expectations. For the last minute and a half, Ciel's brain had been under the impression that his safety was once again being compromised. As a result, the glossy spot of red at his feet resembled more a viscous puddle of blood than an elite fashion rag. 

On the front cover, eyes like a solar eclipse bore into him, audacious in their provocation, threatening to steal more than sight if he kept staring. Reluctantly, Ciel looked away, back to the man whose familiarity to the model only bred contempt. There was no denying they were one and the same. 

“I have nothing to give you,” Ciel blurted, bending to pick up the October issue of **_ɇpoquɘ_**.

The man’s gaze flicked upward to the exposed copper pipes in annoyance, “That much is obvious.” 

Ciel’s thumb slipped over the polished secondary headline whose letters seem to glare at him, _Without A Trace: A Year After Ciel Phantomhive’s Disappearance_. A year, already? But it had been longer since he and his brother last spoke. The promptly ignored _Cease and Desist_ letter he’d sent to his twin was dated at least two years ago. With no financial means to back it up, the threat had been virtually empty. That was when he cut ties with his last living family member. 

“Look,” Ciel said, shifting the sodden package to his other arm, “I have zero information on my brother’s whereabouts. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s dead. So take your hairball and your boujee crap out of my home--”

The man casually pocketed his sunglasses, a simple gesture Ciel recognized after having served one too many douchebags coffee as _‘getting down to business’_. “I’m not looking for information.”

“Then what are you looking for?” 

“You,” the stranger patronized with a dramatic flourish of his hand. 

Ciel jerked his head back, “Me?”

“Come, I’ll explain inside.” The stranger picked up his belongings with his handkerchief, careful not to touch where they made contact with the dirty floor. “Do you realize that your walkup has a distinctive _taste_? I imagine London shared a similar flavour prior to sewage and sanitation.” 

Feeling that there was no point in putting it off any longer, Ciel grudgingly trudged up the stairs, thrusting the fashion mag into the man’s chest with a resounding smack. He let himself in first, leaning on the doorframe to remove his sneakers, then tracked wet sock prints on the worn linoleum. “Take off your shoes,” he instructed over his shoulder, making his way across the flat into his bedroom, dropping the package in a corner with his jacket and apron. 

“I’d rather not risk it. The last time I had a Tetanus shot was seven years ago.” The stranger modulated his voice so that it carried beyond Ciel’s bedroom door. It was deep and beguilingly accented, compelling in a way that momentarily paralyzed Ciel and made his mouth go dry. A chair scraped against the kitchen floor, calling him back to reality. “You know, Phantomhive, this place really isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” 

“It’s not?” Ciel asked, painstakingly peeling his wet clothes off to pull on some sweats and a hoodie.

“No, I imagined there would be a pig’s trough and a pit latrine at the very least!” Through a crack in his bedroom door, Ciel could see the furball jump atop the man’s lap as he spritzed the kitchen with the titanium-glass vial. The scent of something spicy, yet woodsy was quick to saturate the small space. 

Ciel puffed out his cheeks and blew air noisily through loose lips. He might be an individual of little means since he blew all his money, but his living space was immaculate. Besides, he wouldn’t be baited into a discussion of privilege with someone who likely wiped their ass with two-ply silk. 

From under his pillow, he withdrew a folding knife and hid it in his hoodie’s kangaroo pocket, reemerging in the kitchen a minute later, aggressively towelling off his shoulder-length hair. The kettle was turned on, a tea bag was lobbed into a chipped cup and when Ciel finally sat with his hot drink and donut he said, “I didn’t forget to offer you something, I’m just that uncivilized.” 

“I assumed as much,” the man quipped, his long, manicured fingers threading delicately through his cat’s fur. 

The tea’s steam swirled and curled comfortingly just under Ciel’s nose, warming his face. Behind his newly fogged glasses, his eyes closed and he filled his lungs with its aroma, the bergamot of his Earl Grey complementary to the natural bouquet of the cologne. When he opened them again, the stranger was staring intently at him. No, examining him, his head cocked to the side as if Ciel was an abstract piece of art. Probably like a Picasso, features distorted every which way. 

“So it’s true, Ciel Phantomhive has a twin brother. The resemblance is certainly there once you can look past the…” he made an indistinct gesture of the hand, “that…” 

“I,” Ciel paused for emphasis, taking a bite of his stale donut, “am Ciel Phantomhive. The individual that _you_ are referring to was the first-born and didn’t think much of my father’s namesake for stardom, so he stole mine.” 

“Mmn… I see. And you believe him to be dead? What makes you so sure?” The stranger asked, leafing through the magazine he set on the table. He couldn’t be bothered to look at the unpolished twin anymore, but his cat kept her mismatched eyes disdainfully on Ciel. 

“I mean, I can’t be absolutely sure,” Ciel swallowed his bite, dunking his donut into his tea for another. He left it hanging there as he thought, long enough that it broke off and plopped into his drink. “But he was always an attention whore, wasn’t he? He wouldn’t have been able to stay out of the spotlight this long.” He fished it out with his fingers and stuffed it into his mouth if only to annoy his guest. “So how did you know him, anyhow? You’re on the cover of that fancy magazine, were you a model friend or something?” 

The comment emasculated the man’s simpering smile. He shut the magazine with more force than necessary and pushed it over to Ciel’s side of the table. “Your boorishness doesn’t inhibit you from being literate, does it?”

 _The Devil Wears Himself: An exclusive interview with Sebastian Michaelis on his return to the atelier_ , Ciel read, mumbling to himself. 

Before him, the man wiped off his Zippo and a blue flame ignited from it to light his cigarette. “Do you understand all those big boy words?” He asked Ciel, inhaling deeply, letting the red tip of his cigarette burn down. 

In the smug silence that preceded the question, a _Buckingham Phallus_ customer found his peak, having taken advantage of the services provided by the masseuse who worked in a small room behind a velvet black curtain. The obscene noises filtered through the floor no differently than the neon lights sifting through the construction paper Ciel had pasted to the windows to keep them out. The occurrence was frequent enough that he barely noticed it anymore. It was like living next to train tracks and hardly registering the shaking of windows or the sound of a horn several times a day. 

Still, the orgasm lasted much longer than usual, and in front of this imposing individual, it made Ciel squirm uncomfortably in his seat. “Sebastian Michaelis?” he read again, “Am I supposed to know that name?”

“In an ideal world… but given your current aesthetic...” Sebastian sniffed, blowing elegant smoke rings across the table. “Who are you wearing right now?”

“Who am I…”

“Wearing.” 

Ciel yanked the back of his grey pullover towards the front, stretching out the already strained and frayed collar. “George.”

“George who? From which house?”

Ciel pressed his lips, trying not to smile. Getting under this Sebastian Michaelis’ skin was quickly becoming his favourite thing. Already, it was better than a day off, better than a hot shower, almost better than chocolate... “It’s from the House of Walmart. Are you familiar?” 

Annoyance flashes in Sebastian's eyes. “I’ll cut to the chase,” he said, tapping his cigarette over the table, letting the ashes fall on a lime green, vinyl placemat. “Just listen to me, I’ve resorted to speaking in clichés…”

“Oh no, that’s awful,” Ciel covered his mouth in mock horror. “It must be the asbestos, it’s everywhere.” 

Sebastian’s deadpan look was a warning to proceed with caution, which Ciel completely ignored. 

“Ye really should get yaahr bloomin’ arse aaaht ov’ere befawer ye develop a Cockney accent, Professor ‘iggins.” 

“I was beginning to think you had no culture at all, Phantomhive. At the very least, you know _My Fair Lady_.” 

“No, I read Pygmalion in lower secondary.”

“Pity. Can you believe they asked me to dress Carey Mulligan for the Tony Awards?” He snorted, rolling his eyes. “Me?” Sebastian pet his cat more fervently, as if she were therapy for whatever post-traumatic stress he was reliving. “Perhaps if it had been for Audrey Hepburn… Nothing against Mulligan of course, she was brilliant in Gatsby…” 

Ciel slurped his tea. Loudly. 

“But I digress…” Sebastian finally said, his tiny tantrum having fizzled out. 

“So why did you come here, really,” Ciel asked, lowering his cup. Fatigue was a burden weighing him down, making his limbs heavier by the minute. Going by the clock on his oven, he had roughly seven hours to sleep before he had to be back at work. _If_ he could make it back to work! Although he enjoyed the verbal sparring, the way Sebastian drained what little energy he had left, practically sucking the marrow from his bones, Ciel would be lucky to crawl the four-block distance. So he heaved himself from his seat and lumbered to the door to show the man out; a rude gesture, but he felt it was well-deserved. 

Sebastian Michaelis remained seated, put his cigarette out on Ciel’s floor, then lit another. 

“I need Ciel Phantomhive back on the catwalk.” 

Ciel balked, clammy hand on the doorknob. “Well, you’re shit out of luck. I told you, I don’t know where he is.” He opened the door wide and picked up the carrier. Now that he saw it more closely, he made out the dirt-coloured, interlocked L’s and V’s against a brownish-burgundy leather. Funny, Sebastian’s initials were nowhere near those; maybe he gave his cat a full name. “Now, if you and LV wouldn’t mind leaving...”

Sebastian, who hadn’t turned around to face him, continued speaking as if Ciel hadn’t said a word. “I want you to take your brother’s place.”

“And I should do that out of the goodness of my heart?” 

“It’s not as if you’re doing anything monumental with your life right now,” Sebastian said somewhat muffled, cigarette dangling from his mouth.

“Being a human coat hanger isn’t exactly what I consider rewarding.” 

“A coat hanger?” Sebastian stood abruptly and his cat jumped off his lap with an indignant hiss. She lept immediately to his vacated seat so as to not dirty her paws on Ciel’s floor. “A coat hanger has never been a muse. A coat hanger has never been fashion’s apotheosis. Has never inspired greed, lust, envy, or any of the other deadly sins.” Sebastian took one deliberate step after the other, crowding the boy against the wall by the door. He lowered his head until he spoke inches from Ciel’s mouth, breathing honey-menthol over his face. “How small of you to presume Warhol’s canvas was only stretched flax, and Michelangelo’s marble was just a rock.”

Ciel turned his face, defying the urge to inhale a scent that normally repulsed him. His sticky donut fingers came up in warning against Sebastian’s chest. This man was too close and still, he edged arrogantly closer the more Ciel resisted him. He felt the outline of the knife residing in his hoodie pocket push against his own belly. If he could just get his hand on it. 

“They’re tools,” he said through gritted teeth, “I don’t want to be anyone’s tool.” 

“No, ignorant boy, they’re raw materials. Just as Michelangelo’s task was to liberate the human form trapped inside the block, so it is mine to distort the perfection of that human’s so-called beauty by stripping away society’s outdated expectations.” 

Sebastian took the carrier from Ciel’s loose grip and backed off with a fanatic gleam in his pitch-black eyes. This had not been an impassioned speech, it had been a sermon. He’d spoken of his work with the same kind of reverence with which individuals worshipped their gods. And in that showy, brash resoluteness, Ciel understood that Sebastian Michaelis was his own deity. 

“The fact remains that I don’t want to be used,” Ciel asserted, watching as Sebastian gently coaxed his cat back into her carrier. 

The words hung in the air like the blade of a guillotine waiting to fall. Sebastian gathered his belongings, abandoning the magazine on table, strode to the door and held out a glossy-black business card between two long fingers. “Right now you’re being used by a multi-million dollar corporation to make shitty coffee at minimum wage, donning the same ill-fitted green apron as everyone else. There, _you_ are common. Worse than common, you’re forgettable. If you’re going to be used, Phantomhive, you might as well have enough self-respect to do it in style. Call me when you come to your senses. You have three days.” 

Ciel hoped Sebastian would lose his footing going down the stairs, not to be grievously injured - he didn’t want the man here any longer than necessary - but enough to embarrass himself, to bruise his inflated ego and maybe that stupidly handsome face. No such luck. Sebastian left without a backward glance, not even slamming the door behind him. It was as if the whole interaction had meant nothing to him, or that he’d lived it so often that it became unremarkably routine, the same way making a new pot of coffee every fifteen minutes was habitual for Ciel. 

Once he was sure Sebastian was gone, Ciel locked the door leading to the outside. He threw the business card onto the counter only because it was closer than the garbage can. His phone bill hadn’t been paid in months and he couldn’t waste electricity to charge it daily, so he’d been without one for a while. From the cover of the magazine, Sebastian Michaelis judged him. His eyes seemed to follow Ciel around the kitchen, creepier than Jesus in church. Antagonized, he turned over the mag, recognizing a familiar patterned purse slung over the wiry body of a stern-faced model. 

He read the bolded name at the bottom right corner, “LV. Louis Vuitton. Stupid name for a cat…” but brought the magazine to his bedroom regardless, along with a chair, placing the latter under the doorknob for added safety. 

For two hours, Ciel tried to sleep. He tossed and turned. He beat his lumpy pillow. He counted sheep. He made a to-do list in his head:

**_To do:_ **

Work

Trim own hair

Laundry in the sink

He also made a second list:

**_Not to do:_ **

Think of Sebastian Michaelis

“He’s not even that good looking,” Ciel said to nobody as he kicked off his sheets and sat up in bed. “Not really. Not enough to be a model. He’s too...” His thoughts tapered as he lit the lamp next to his bed, shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose and used the elastic band around his wrist to tie his hair back. “I mean, look at your chin,” he pointed out, flicking Sebastian’s face before opening the magazine at random. It smelled strongly of men’s cologne, more odoriferous than the one that permeated his kitchen. He leafed through ad after ad after ad. Gucci. Hermès. Valentino. Michaelis.

 _As in Sebastian Michaelis?_ Surely not. The man who’d just left was in his early thirties at most! Maybe it was a family business? Ciel could definitely see Sebastian’s entitled ass mooching off an elderly father. There was no way someone so arrogant, so full of himself could possess one-tenth of the kinesthetic artistry to have come up with the ad before him: a wisp of a girl, or it might have been a boy, splayed on a page, cut off at the head, body in an awkward pretzel pose that defied gravity. What was even being sold? Strategically placed metal feathers? The Figaro rope that ornamented the model’s neck? No. Not a product. A feeling. In this case, Galadrielic. Beautiful and terrifying in equal parts. 

Ciel flipped back to the table of contents. _58: Editor’s Letter. 117: The New Victorian - Fashion’s ostentatious age gets a punk makeover. 146: Without A Trace - A year after Ciel Phantomhive’s disappearance._ That was a nope. What was the point of opening up old wounds? He was gone. That’s all there was to it. Ciel _felt_ it even without confirmation. Call it a twin’s intuition, a gut feeling or whatever other threadbare phrase psychologists used. The reality was that unless the article was a call to action to find the individual who killed his brother, he couldn’t be bothered to read it. 

_211: Trick or Chic - Pair your treats with our top luxury items. 266: The Devil Wears Himself: An exclusive interview with Sebastian Michaelis on his return to the atelier_. Ciel thrashed through the pages of the magazine, ignoring the paper that sliced through his finger, bringing it up to his lips in a half-assed first aid attempt. 

The featured article on his unwelcome guest was seven pages, five of which were devoted to a grandiose photoshoot, each with a wardrobe change. Open shirts, onyx organza, lavish three-piece suits, carved out cheekbones, charcoal-lined eyes, dark lips and black nails, drama; Sebastian Michaelis was nothing if not dramatic. But always, he was accompanied by a sort of prop in the background. A signature piece, perhaps? 

It was grotesquely anthropological. Fiendish. Not the del Toro kind of that resembled art or the kind monster lovers wanted to fuck. It. Was. Odious. Came up to Sebastian's shoulder, its appendages frozen in writhing contortions. Every inch was covered in what Ciel thought was melted wax so black that Sebastian's hair seemed grey in comparison.

"I bet if Michelangelo knew _that_ was buried in a slab of stone, he would have quit sculpting," Ciel laughed, shuddering uneasily at his own joke. 

He struggled to keep the monstrosity out of his line of sight when he read the article to which it belonged. “The Devil You Know,” the title read in brazen, red lettering, the capital D complete with a demon’s spaded tail winding its way around the text.

> _Hell might be empty, but the Devil’s Tailor is not here, nor has he been at any of last month’s Big Four Fashion weeks. As the fashion industry grows restless to fill the void created by Sebastian Michaelis’ absence from the runway and the atelier, the eccentric designer discusses his impromptu hiatus and upcoming ventures in fragrance and cosmetics. By Ronald Knox, Photographs by Sascha._

At the mention of _designer_ , Ciel felt vindicated for approximately three seconds; he’d been right in his assumption that Sebastian wasn’t a model after all. But the longer he sat there with the magazine over his lap, the more something like dread settled in. So, it was _his_ business, after all. Maybe Sebastian wasn’t as big a deal as he made himself out to be. Maybe this was a pity article, a gimme by the Editor-in-Chief if they were friends.

“Ha! As if he’d have friends!” Ciel grunted, aggressively flipping the page, ripping it down the center between Sebastian’s thighs. He skimmed over the article, fairly uninterested in the machinations of the fashion industry, not caring much about who Sebastian Michaelis rubbed elbows with in the last decade.

> _I ask Michaelis what he’s been doing while he hasn’t been working this past year. He takes a sip of his Irish cream and looks at me with the same indifference he’s shown some of his harshest critics in the past, among them Yaeger, Wintour and Lanphear. “I never stopped working. There’s more to what I do than making sketches and cutting fabric. I run an empire. I was busy expanding my brand, acquiring new talent in India and...” I press the fashion mogul for details, but the teasing smile that curls his lips tells me that he’s going to keep his cards close to his chest. “Let’s just say, the House of Michaelis will be breaking certain boundaries in the fashion world this coming year. I’m just ironing out a final detail.”_

“Right,” Ciel muttered, “pushing boundaries by redefining his models. First waifs, then heroin chic, now Starbucks scum from the wrong side of the tracks.” He turned the page.

> _The devil is indeed in the details. There’s been a lot of speculation about the disappearance of Ciel Phantomhive. Rumours abound of the twenty-one-year-old model quitting amidst a flurry of offers from competitors such as Saint Laurent and Versace. “Why would he quit?” The designer asks rhetorically. “Humans are creatures of habit. You simply do not wake one morning and leave a life of caviar for one of Spam.”_

Ciel yawned, surprisingly more tired than bored. Quotes and questions swam on the page and he gave up on reading any more. He let the magazine fall to the floor unceremoniously, tossed his glasses somewhere next to it and turned off the lamp. Neon lights penetrated the sun-faded construction paper in his bedroom window. The glazing bars that held the panes of glass cast their shadows on his wall, cage-like, and he was forced to switch the nightlight on to get rid of them. He’d unplug his fridge tomorrow if that’s what it took to lower his utility bill. The blanket came up to his chin, his feet childishly tucked away as to not be grabbed by things that went bump in the night and he closed his eyes, making quite sure to face the door.

Slowly, sleep stole over Ciel’s restless body, letting his anxiety exhale through his deepening breaths. It was no coincidence, he thought, mind drifting, that Sebastian’s hiatus coincided with his brother’s presumed disappearance. If his twin had somehow been the designer’s muse and had chosen to abandon him, it gave Sebastian a substantive motive for killing him. 

Just not nearly as much motive as Ciel himself had.


	2. Deal With the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Phantomhive, do I need to undress you myself?” 
> 
> Pale bloomed to pink as it crept over Ciel’s nose and cheeks. “No,” he answered too quickly, toeing off his left sneaker. He swayed, almost losing his balance and had to steady himself on Sebastian’s bicep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> 
> 
> Title: Deal With the Devil  
> By: [M](https://paradixenfer.tumblr.com/)  
> 
> 
> _"What you wear is how you present yourself to the world, especially today, when human contacts are so quick. Fashion is instant language." —Miuccia Prada_  
> 
> 
> Musical Inspiration: [I Think I'm Paranoid by Garbage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypr18UmxOas&list=RD3ppiohVRZ0s&index=2)

When Ciel woke the next morning, a cold had lodged itself between his eyes like a bullet to the brain. He blinked painfully, lashes weighed down with crusty eye cement. Once they broke apart, a blurry view of his water-stained ceiling was his only reward-- hardly worth the effort. Groaning, he turned over in his bed, wincing as an errant spring in his threadbare mattress dug into his left kidney. He groaned again, gravelly this time, and it loosened up the snotty mess currently residing in his nose and throat. 

Reluctant to swallow any of it, he dragged his ass out of bed. The tape holding up the construction paper had lost its battle and a strip of depressing grey light filtered into his room. 

“Great… rain.” The cold dampness soaked through the window, chasing away his sleep-warm skin. He shivered thinking about being out there soon, a soggy heap of plastered hair and sallow skin. 

The chair ground noisily under the doorknob as it was wiggled free and once it was, Ciel made a beeline for his washroom. Shaking, he pushed aside his sweat-clumped fringe, resting the back of his hands upon his cheeks. Warm. Clammy. His face was so drawn, so pasty that he hardly recognized the fevered eyes staring hollowly back at him. 

He’d been denying the symptoms for days: the achy muscles, the mild headaches, the lethargy, hoping they were just exhaustion-related. But now whatever looked back at him in the mirror was nothing short of full-blown Romero.

The plumbing must have been sick too with the way it choked and sputtered. Ciel half expected the pipes to cough up a rodent by the racket they made. 

There were no rats, no mice, just cold, cold water on his face as he turned on the shower. He shivered for the duration of it, cursing the landlord for having turned off his hot water -- a warning not to be late with the rent again. With all the overtime this past week, he would earn just enough to break even; taking time off to recover from this plague today was not an option. 

The silver lining, he thought, was that whatever he’d caught might be airborne, and with any luck, Sebastian Michaelis was laid up in bed, regretting ever coming over in the first place. 

He dressed in his most comfortable khakis and long-sleeve t-shirt. Threw on an oversized hoodie and tied his hair back without drying it. The strain of the messy bun tugged at the pressure behind his eyes. His glasses felt heavy on his face. If he could just get through today, he could crawl back into bed. 

Six hours. 

Six hours was doable. 

Six hours was an afternoon reading Faust. 

Six hours was less sleep than he got last night. 

No appetite for breakfast meant he shaved seven minutes off of his morning routine. But the sensation of having swallowed broken glass meant tea and honey for the road. He flipped his kettle on and sat at the table, head in his hands, waiting for it to sound off. 

His discomfort prevented him from staying still. He slouched low into his seat, rear almost off the chair, stretching his legs when his bare toe brushed something silky-soft. 

Ciel's surprised gasp tore at his throat. Never in the history of physics had fifty-two kilograms falling off a chair ever made such a racket. He scrambled on hands and knees, sure something had curled up and died under his table. Squinting, he got closer, making out the distinct shape of an umbrella with a polished, wooden handle. 

“That tosser!” Ciel spat venomously at an imaginary Sebastian, heart still hammering in his ears. He got up to his feet, bumping his head on the table in the process, only now realizing that he hadn’t heard the kettle’s tell-tale click. Upon further inspection, its little orange light wasn’t on, nor had it warmed at all. He flicked the switch off and on, off and on, off and on to no avail. “Damn it.” Another thing for him to replace. 

Maybe some warm apple juice for his cough, then? He could throw it in the microwave and heat it up a little. There was some left in the fridge, probably near the back. Did apple juice go bad? As he dug through the fridge, pushing aside condiments and week-old Chinese takeaway, the smell wasn’t the only thing that was off; the shelves were slightly wet, forming puddles around the containers, all of which were cast into darkness. 

“What the…” Ciel bent his neck to get a better view, prodding the light source against the wall of melting ice. “You’ve got to be kidding me…”

He abandoned the fridge and turned on the kitchen light. Nothing. The stove. Nothing. The microwave. Nothing. 

“I thought I had two more days,” Ciel grouched, kicking the box left on his doorstep yesterday out of temper. It absorbed the blow, damp cardboard moulding itself to his foot. He cursed, leaning against the wall trying to pick out the crumbly bits of the box from between his toes. After work, the package would find a new home in the rubbish, along with the others Ciel had received in the last year. He knew, without looking at the label, who the sender was. When he’d had a phone, the storage company harassed him non-stop to come pick up his brother’s possessions. He wasn’t at all interested, but it seemed his twin had paid a hefty deposit in case his belongings went unclaimed. 

The battery-operated clock on the wall gave him roughly twenty minutes to get to work and he would make it on time if he left immediately. With no clean socks, he pushed his bare feet into his sopping sneakers, threw on his still sodden apron and rain jacket and gave the umbrella under the table a stern look, as if it had done him a personal wrong. “This is all your fault,” he accused, even if it wasn’t. 

From the counter, Sebastian’s business card glared at him. “And you too!” he scolded the sleek, black rectangle, pocketing it anyway. It was destined for the trash at work, no, the compost, to be scrapped with the wet, gritty coffee grounds and cake crumbs. Eventual worm waste, dark enough to cover up the dazzling allure of Sebastian’s offer. With that, he left his flat, umbrella in hand, locking the door on the way out. 

Last night’s rain hadn’t had the chance to dry yet, but London was like that. Ciel meandered along the sidewalk, avoiding puddles and dog shit, bumping into early morning walkers due to how low the umbrella’s canopy hung. He muttered apologies from the side of his mouth, all while desperately denying the hysteria viciously clawing its way into awareness. 

His fingers tingled and chilled. Autumn, he told himself, was settling in. That’s all.

Powerlessness dissolved into his muscles, circulating his fatigue. It’s this flu, he convinced himself. Just the flu.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t panic. It wasn’t panic. It wasn’t panic. It wasn’t panic.

It had nothing to do with throwing out the only food he had left in his flat because it all went bad in the refrigerator. 

_Breathe_.

Or that with no heat, he wouldn’t be able to warm up tonight. 

_Breathe_.

Or that he was already thinking about the lack of electricity, or rather, the lack of light at night to keep him safe. 

_Breathe, Ciel, breathe!_

The neon lights. The bars on the walls… 

_Breathe_. 

It was still two days until payday.

 _Breathe_. 

He couldn’t even afford candles and matches at this point.

Dry sobs wracked his slender form. Air grated his lungs as it was drawn in too sharply. “Too bad!” he scolded himself out loud, wiping his tearless eyes with his sleeve. “Too bad. You made an informed decision. You knew this might happen.”

The scent of fresh baked goods carried down the street, but Ciel couldn’t smell it. Not even when he reached the indoors. His nose was so stuffed up, his senses overloaded by terror. 

He recited the alphabet backwards to calm himself, letting the raindrops dot the laminated floor of the cafe when he shook out his umbrella. They’d taken away the forest green runner last week in anticipation of muckier shoes, and while Ciel was initially happy about not having to vacuum at the end of his shift, strategically moving the yellow, folded sign cautioning patrons that the floor might be slippery was more time-consuming. He tossed Sebastian’s umbrella into the basket along with two others, one of which was blood red, belonging to his manager.

“Stop right there!”

Ciel’s head snapped up. He froze, mid-step. “What?”

Grell came around the counter, throwing a tea towel at the customer waiting for his morning brew. “You can’t leave that in there!” 

“Why the hell not? Yours is in there.” Ciel lowered his foot, his balance waning where he stood. In his delirious haze, had he missed a crucial bit of information that could have saved him from Grell's theatrics? 

“Do you even know what that is?”

“It’s an umbrella… isn’t it?” Ciel locked eyes with the customer, a short, pudgy middle-aged man whose balding head displayed a throbbing, angry vein. He rushed to the counter to finish his order, while Grell made her way noisily to the door in her five-inch pumps. 

“No,” Grell clicked her tongue. “It is not _just_ an umbrella!” She removed it from the basket as if it had been contaminated by the others, hers included. “It’s a Sebastian Michaelis umbrella! Look, you can see the little demon logo here. This one hasn’t even been unveiled to the public yet!” 

“How did you see that from over there?” Ciel inquired, pouring the steaming café au lait into a travel mug. He signalled for the customer to give him a moment and tucked a chocolate chip cookie into a carryout bag, nodding an apology for Grell. The man left, snatching his own umbrella on the way out. “Are you some kind of…”

“Fangirl? Obviously! Have you seen him? Look, he’s on the cover of the magazine right by the register,” Grell said, examining the black accessory, opening and closing it and opening it again. She admired herself posing with it in the reflection of the cafe’s floor to ceiling windows. 

“I meant, fashionista or whatever it’s called.”

“No, darling. I’m a fashion connoisseur.” 

Ciel slipped off his jacket and threw it under the counter next to Grell’s purse. Now that he got a good look at it, it did seem to have some fancy horse and buggy logo on it. “Are you a fervent consumer as well? And by that I mean, do you starve on your monthly salary?” 

“A little intermittent fasting never hurt a girl’s figure,” Grell said, throwing her long, scarlet-siren hair back. “Besides, this is only _one_ of my three jobs.” 

“But you work here forty hours a week!” Ciel protested, grabbing a tissue to blow his nose.

“Beauty is pain, darling. And lack of sleep.” She stood the umbrella between the cappuccino and coffee machines, then moved her purse suspiciously away from Ciel’s belongings. “Speaking of which, you look like Crocs on Lindsey Lohan. Should you be here today?” 

“I can’t afford _not_ to be here," Ciel groaned, throwing his tissue out and sanitizing his hands. 

"Well, I can't have you serving customers looking like that. Once McMillan is in, I'll have you do inventory at the back." 

"Thanks." Ciel's headache pulsed behind his eyes and he swayed on the spot, not sure what to do with himself. He'd rather keep busy, make time fly by faster. 

"Or not--" Grell amended. "For now, take off your apron, I don't want people knowing you work here. Go sit over there and pretend you're reading. I'll bring you some tea and a scone."

"I didn't bring my book with me," Ciel said, longing for a blanket and his copy of Faust… not that he’d be able to read it in this state. 

"Great, you can read about Sebastian, instead." She held the magazine out for Ciel, then pulled it back, chagrined. Her red-painted lips pursed into a thin line. 

"What?"

"It's just… Sorry… there's an article about your brother…" she trailed off, hiding the magazine under her purse.

"I know."

"You do?"

"Yeah. I saw his name, _my name_ , when I looked at the cover," Ciel lied. Well, partially lied; he had seen it a few moments ago... and last night. 

"Are you okay with everything?" Grell asked for the millionth time. She'd initially hired Ciel for his resemblance to the high profile model but was disappointed that he had none of the same flare. Thank goodness for his impressive work ethic. 

"Yeah. Course," he waved her off flippantly. "You know we hadn’t been close in years." 

Grell sighed. "If you say so.”

“I’ll go sit.” Ciel turned abruptly. He couldn’t look at her anymore. He couldn’t. He hated her clenched half-smile. Her slight head-tilt. The urge she fought to bring her hand over her heart. The tsk that escaped her lips. And the grateful relief that she herself was not in his shoes. 

Pity. 

Even if Ciel didn’t want it, he wasn’t immune to how small it made him feel. _Smaller_ it made him feel. 

His cantankerousness wasn’t a deterrent to Grell’s natural, bubbly extraversion. Nor was the morning rush. She served patrons, occasionally drawing their attention to the umbrella she displayed behind her like some sacred samurai sword. Much of her conversation centred on gossip, specifically the buzz surrounding something called ‘London Fashion Week’. 

“Sebastian Michaelis isn’t doing a single show - again! Can you believe it? Third one in a row. I bet he’s planning something big,” she mused with a statuesque woman sporting tightly coiled hair and a rounded belly. “I read in _époque_...”

“Mmm…” the woman merely responded, uninterested. She seemed as uncomfortable as Ciel felt, maybe even more. Every now and then, she spasmed where she stood, and when Grell gave her the key to the washroom, she disappeared quickly. 

Time crawled like a drunk pub-goer, slow and disorienting. It was nearing noon and the café was more or less full with teenagers leeching off the free wifi during lunchtime. Ciel had gone to the backroom to free up a table. He was doing inventory, albeit sluggishly, and had begun to think that Grell must have forgotten him, when she came running to the back room. 

“Uh, Ciel...” 

All the colour had drained from Grell’s face, not a small feat considering the amount of cosmetics she wore. Immediately, Ciel thought that Sebastian had found out where he worked and was here to harass him into taking his damned job. He couldn’t deal with that right now; not after this morning. The temptation to give in to that siren song would be his undoing as surely as it had been for his brother.

“I need your help,” Grell cut through his inattention. 

“Okay,” Ciel said dubiously, getting up off the ground, “lemme get my apron…”

She blocked the door to the small office, her hand coming up to halt him. “I’d rather you not use an apron.” She gave him latex gloves, wipes, paper towel and Javex. ”Use this instead.”

“Who has a baby in a god damn coffee shop public washroom?” Ciel barked at a stranger, stomping home after his gruelling shift. This time, he forgot about being courteous, parting the sidewalk crowd with his _Sebastian Michaelis_ umbrella like it was an impenetrable force field. “Who just casually decides to leave afterbirth all over a floor for someone else to clean up?” 

Thunder crashed overhead and the rain came pelting down harder. Ciel picked up the pace, fever-sweating through his hoodie. A car sped by at top speed through a puddle, throwing mud along his left side from shoulder to shoe. He swallowed, trying desperately to hold on to what little composure he had left. The prickling behind his eyes was growing incessantly stronger and he beat the sensation back savagely, blinking surreptitiously. 

His flat had never seemed so far away. Twice, he stopped to make sure he was on the right path, only to be slammed into by passersby. By the time he rounded the corner, he was in a state of paranoia, worried that the tall, black-clad bastard would be loitering there, eager to kick Ciel when he was already down. 

Upon seeing his building unmanned, cowardly relief flooded his muscles, turning them to jelly. Tension was leaving him in tangible increments along with any impulse other than to get into bed for the next fourteen hours. He could deal with hot water and electricity tomorrow. He could put off hating his job for the night. All that mattered was having a roof over his head and falling asleep before the evening's shadows tormented him. 

He almost missed it tacked to the door, soggy, nondescript, the same faded colour as the slate fibreglass it was pinned to. The letter’s edge had been torn from a notepad in a hurry, no different than the inelegant, runny script scrawled from margin to margin.

**Eviction Notice**

In his surging panic, Ciel let go of the umbrella. Long, wet strands of his hair fell into his eyes, cascading down his face for tears that wouldn’t come. The walls of his throat constricted so that he choked on his heart’s every laboured lurch.

_**Phantomhive: Rent is overdue.**_

Anxiety slammed Ciel, jarring his ability to think. Overdue? How? His fingers felt like lead, numb things that he could scarcely unfurl from tight fists to count the days since his last pay. And when he did, they trembled in front of his face, distorted like a bad trip, fuzzy and blurred.

_**You have until 22:00**_

Imaginary claws targeted his chest, digging into his skin through his jacket and shirt, squeezing his lungs, grinding his bones. The full weight of the grip pinned him to the door like a butterfly on a mount. He bit back a whimper. He bit back a wailing moan, imprisoning it behind clenched teeth.

_**or your possessions will be thrown into the streets.**_

And then, he broke.

Feet kicked. Hands thrashed. The door took the blows in reverberating obstinance. Ciel’s body raged at his lack of words until it could no longer support itself, sliding down, down, down to the sodden earth onto his knees, letter decaying in his hands. 

Anger turned to hilarity. Painful, hysterical laughter ripped from his vocal cords, directed to an invisible sadist in the sky. He wrapped his arms around his belly to hold himself together, sure he would burst, certain that everything he felt at that moment would make him explode. And just when he thought he had nothing left, when his mouth was open in silent paroxysms, the raucous tears that spilled from his eyes were bitter by the time they hit the ground. 

“Hey...” 

The voice seemed so very far away. It couldn’t be meant for him. 

“Hey, kid…” 

He felt a toe prod his backside. 

“What?” Ciel croaked, hoarse from his panic. It didn’t even sound like a real word. He hoped the inflection would give it away as a question. 

“I don’t mean to pry--”

“But I’m sure you will anyhow,” Ciel cut across, defensively. 

“Sorry, it’s just… I saw the notice on your door on my way to work today.”

Ciel turned his head, saw fishnets, a miniskirt and exhaled. He knew exactly who it was; they often crossed paths on their respective way to work. 

“Yeah, so?” 

“So…” She offered him a hand up, and he refused outright. “My boss is hiring… you know there,” she pointed to Buckingham Phallus, “in the back. We’re short a masseuse, and you’re kind of cute…”

“Cute?” Ciel clambered to his feet, letting the word niggle at his brain. 

“Yeah, cute. Maybe even kind of beautiful with the right clothes and glasses and hair…” She smiled kindly at him. 

“Beautiful,” Ciel repeated vacantly, patting his jacket. He felt the outline in his left pocket, the card, fully intact. It might not have ended up as compost in the literal sense, but in his desperation, Ciel intended on using it as a means to enrich and better his environment. “Beautiful…”

The umbrella was in his hand when he left home again, letting his feet carry him to the nearest underground station. He didn’t have much on his Oyster Card, maybe enough for a handful of rides. 

Emergencies only. Like this one. 

He despised public transport, saw it as a necessary evil, as a bane to his misanthropy. Too many people. He saw enough of them at the coffee shop and preferred not to be surrounded by them on his own time. 

The hood of his jacket came up to further shut them out. He stared blankly past his reflection in the window at the zooming wall of grey, not bothering to sit. What was the point when he had to switch lines twice? Sitting would make it harder not to fall asleep. Sitting would make it harder to stand again. 

“Sex store masseuse isn’t a cute look,” he mouthed to his reflection, leaning his head against the glass. He needed to stay on his feet. To put one in front of the other until they led him to Sebastian’s cocky self-righteous face again. 

Back on street level, it had stopped raining. He refused to take it as a good omen, instead, rationalizing it as yet another way providence favoured the one-percent. 

Despite the fact that the Leadenhall area was quite popular, Ciel had only gone once when he was ten years old. His father had met with work acquaintances over premium spirits and craft beers. His mother disappeared into a skincare boutique for some rejuvenation. He and his twin were, as usual, left to fend for themselves. They explored the market, popping in and out of stores, mostly clothing, so that his brother could try things on and parade in high-end pieces. They were inevitably chased from those retailers and ended up in a lavish bookstore. His brother lasted all of three minutes then scampered off, but Ciel ended up devouring _The Book of Lies_ and had been hooked on the occult ever since. 

Ciel let out a sigh, dedicating half of it to the simpler times of his childhood, and the other half for his current frustration. After circling the market twice, he’d yet to find a sign indicating Sebastian Michaelis’ place of business. Nothing in the vicinity seemed grandiose enough, pretentious enough to house such an ego. Working against two hundred and fifty thousand years of biological evolution, Ciel walked into a sketchy, brick-faced warehouse and asked for directions. 

The outside of the warehouse was deceiving, a stark contrast to what it held on the inside. Despite London’s grey atmosphere, light flooded the space thanks to the pendulum bay lights affixed overhead and a riot of white walls and floors. An army of mannequins lined the building’s perimeter, outnumbering the tables thirty to one and the sewing machines even more so. Bodies bustled with energy, rivalling rush hour at Piccadilly Circus, stitching, measuring, cutting, cursing. 

“I said, there’s a homeless shelter just a few blocks over.” 

A pretty receptionist waved a polished hand in Ciel’s face. Her hair was jet black with an obsidian sheen, set in space buns that Ciel hadn’t seen anywhere but in anime. Still, it suited her, in the same way her mesh crop top and high-waisted, slitted skirt did. This was clearly the right place. 

“I’m not homeless,” Ciel said. Abruptly, he was quite self-conscious. Not because his appearance didn’t measure up to that of the receptionist, but because he was afraid that she would mistake him for his brother. He angled his head, letting his hood and hair fall forward, relying on his oversized clothes to provide him with a thin-veiled disguise. “I’d like to see Sebastian Michaelis.” 

“So does most of the world, honey,” she chuckled derisively. She folded her arms over her chest, clutching a clipboard with a small mountain of mismatched papers. “Do you have an appointment?” 

“Not exactly, but he’s expecting me.” 

She raised a shapely eyebrow, curiously looking over his muddied attire. “Are you blackmailing him?” 

“Of course not!” 

“Hmm… Be that as it may, he’s really, really busy right now.” She pointed to a schedule at the top of her pile as proof. “And this is just for the next hour.”

“Look,” Ciel pulled Sebastian’s business card --along with a ratty tissue and his wallet-- from his pocket as counter-proof, “he gave this to me yesterday.” 

She frowned. “Well, he doesn’t give his card to just anyone. Why don’t you leave me your number and I’ll have him call you back when he has a chance.” 

Ciel rubbed the back of his neck, his gaze bouncing from corner to corner in the building, trying to see Sebastian for himself. He couldn’t chance the man calling him past 22:00, in fact, given that Ciel didn’t have a functioning phone, he couldn’t chance him calling at all. 

“How about this? You tell Sebastian Michaelis that I’ll be at the McDonald’s two streets over, for one hour. After that, I walk.” 

The receptionist’s eyes widened and her mouth went slack. She gave a quick disbelieving shake of the head, either thoroughly impressed by Ciel’s threat or completely put off by his presumption. “Can I give him a name?” 

“He’ll know who I am.”

Without his phone, Ciel couldn’t be sure how much time had gone by. He’d started thinking that maybe there was another McDonald’s in the area or that Sebastian had been playing a joke on him yesterday, courtesy of his late brother. A final blow from beyond the grave.

He sat facing the entrance, tucked in a corner so that Sebastian wouldn’t take him unaware. Until now, he’d been unbothered by the staff for loitering, but the ginger with the manager’s tag pinned to her ample bust kept shooting him furtive looks. 

_Come on…_ he breathed, wishing it would summon the designer. _Come on…_ The last thing he needed was to get kicked out of a fast-food joint. He was tired, he was hungry. He had little to no energy to stand outside waiting, much less to make up an excuse as to why he couldn’t go back in. Ciel flushed at the thought of it, “I can’t even afford anything from the extra value menu.” He took the napkin he’d pilfered from the condiments tray, wiped the sweat from his upper lip and blew his nose as quietly as possible. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the manager approaching. Ciel’s legs bounced nervously. His mouth went dry. He stared at the table, pretending to count the grains in the false wood. Just as a pair of worn Nike’s sidled up next to him, he heard a pubescent, screechy voice cut through the white noise. 

“I’m sorry, sir. We don’t allow cats in here.” 

Ciel’s head shot up in dizzying relief. 

“You shouldn’t allow humans in here, either,” Sebastian sniffed, standing proudly, dark eyes wandering over the establishment. They fell on Ciel and he strode purposefully towards his table. His long, wool jacket swept behind him, almost majestically. The fur at his collar drew more attention than his blunt refusal to abandon the cat held to his breast, partly draped over his shoulder. Customers hissed under their breath, workers came to a standstill and two tables away, Ciel was sure he heard a girl say something about ‘briefcase douchebag with sunglasses indoors.’ 

The manager’s gobsmacked gaze was torn between the extravagant man seating himself across from Ciel and the Turkish Angora making herself comfortable on said man’s lap.

“Sir…” 

“Two iced, half-caff, venti, four-pump, sugar-free, cinnamon dolce soy skinny lattes,” Sebastian ordered, removing a pressed stack of papers from his briefcase. 

“Excuse me?” the manager ejaculated. 

Sebastian sighed. “Do you need to write this down, or shall I speak more slowly?” 

“We don’t have that. We’re a McDonald’s. You have to place your order up there,” she pointed to the cash register. 

Sebastian sorted his documents, only half-listening to her. Not once had he given her the courtesy of eye contact. Such things were obviously below him. “Well, what do you have that isn’t something you’d serve inmates?” 

“Two Quarter Pounder combos, extra pickles and onions on one of them” Ciel interrupted shrewdly, “one Coke, no ice,” he looked over at Sebastian, who fixed him with a dagger stare, “and a Diet Coke for the gentleman. He’s watching his figure.” 

The manager was rooted to the spot, nodding absentmindedly. She had the kind of expression that soldiers wore after coming home from war. Like she couldn’t quite make sense of what she’d witnessed. 

“Well, pay her,” Ciel prompted, ignoring Sebastian’s incredulous expression. “And mind that you tip her well.” 

“Put it on a tab and I’ll send my assistant later.” Sebastian’s glower dulled the glint of his eyes, coal instead of onyx. Perhaps if Ciel hadn’t been sick, the chill he felt then and there might have been fearful rather than uneasy. 

“Sir, we don’t…” 

Sebastian produced a card before she could continue, black with a silver centurion. “Just charge it!” He snapped. 

“It’s a thirty-five percent tip rate here isn’t it?” Ciel asked, watching the manager flip the card around, squinting as she inspected it. 

“Forty,” she quirked a smile and plodded towards the kitchen. 

They sat in silence for a minute before Sebastian secured some papers together with a clip and pushed them toward Ciel. “Good work today, Phantomhive. Nobody at my warehouse recognized you. Not even Sieglinde, and she’s normally quite astute,” he said, placing a pen delicately atop the pile. “For instance, she told me the boy who stopped by was ill. What strain of the plague are you spreading today?”

Ciel coughed into his elbow. “None… this is a run-of-the-mill cold.”

“It’s just as well. I’d hate for the city to waste valuable tax money digging up a pit in your neighbourhood to dispose of your corpse and whoever else you infected.”

Sebastian got another cough instead of a witty comeback from Ciel. In that time, the designer cleared his throat and his tone went from biting banter to business-boredom. “Here is a contract made especially for you. I’ve starred some of the important clauses that are not standard for most of my models. I’d like you to take a moment to--”

“I’m not signing a contract yet,” Ciel butt in, adjusting the glasses on his nose and pushing the contract back. 

Sebastian stiffened. “Then why did you summon me? Here of all places?” 

“To talk.” 

“And what, pray tell, would you like to talk about?” Sebastian leaned back into his chair and thought better of it when the plastic backrest creaked. “How nonchalantly you paraded approximately seven hundred pounds around London today?”

Ciel grimaced. “A fat joke.” He swallowed hard. “Typical. Predictable coming from someone in the fashion industry.” He sniffed. “I got news for you, Sebastian Michaelis, we use the metric system in Britain. And I hadn’t planned on eating both those burgers all by myself, but I will now.” 

Sebastian removed his glasses in time for Ciel to see his eyes roll back dramatically into his head. “No. You’ve been using my umbrella today, Sweetheart. Seven hundred pounds will be the retail price.” He pet his cat, carding his fingers through her fur with an almost lover-like tenderness. 

“Finders keepers. Don’t leave your shit at my house next time.” Ciel’s eyes drifted to the table -- the contract, really -- then back up at Sebastian. He somehow had to fill the impending silence again before business talks resumed. “So why do you bring Louis Vuitton here,” he nodded towards the cat, “everywhere you go? Does he think he’s special or something?” 

The Turkish Angora hissed, flattening her ears against her head. 

“ _Her_ name isn’t Louis, it’s Asmodeus. But you’re to address her by _Your Highness_ like all my employees.” 

Ciel snorted. “Not gonna happen, mate.” 

Food was brought over to their table. Without any regard to the paperwork, the manager deposited the tray, along with Sebastian’s card, in front of them. Chips spilled out of their cartons, grease lined the papers wrapping the sandwiches. Despite stress and illness killing most of Ciel’s appetite, despite not being able to smell or taste a damn thing, he shovelled food into his mouth. 

Sebastian turned his head, looking out the window. “Your brother adored Asmodeus.” 

“Are you _trying_ to get me to hate her?” Ciel took a sip of his Coke, it soothed his irritated throat. “Hey, you better eat those,” he motioned to the chips, “once they go cold, they taste like packing peanuts.” 

“I can see that I’m wasting my time here,” Sebastian said, tucking his card away. He brought the cat up to his chest, bracing her weight to stand. 

“Wait,” Ciel said with his mouth full. He swallowed the lump painfully and tears came to his eyes. 

Sebastian raised an imperious eyebrow. 

“I’ve got a headache the size of Russia and I’m not going through all of that fine print. Give me the highlights. Verbally. What am I getting into if I decide to sign on with you?” 

Sebastian licked his lips, though they didn’t need it. The gesture was a hungry one. The equivalent of a spider rubbing its limbs together when a fly has been caught in its web. “You have the standard model release clauses, copyright and use, liabilities for photoshoots and runways. If you haven’t noticed yet, my work leans heavily on the… Mephistophelian. As such, your assignments may include some physical and psychological discomfort.” He smirked. 

Ciel took a drink, nodding. He doubted anything was as uncomfortable as being on all fours cleaning placenta off the floor. “Go on… What about those _very important clauses_?”

“You’ll work exclusively for me. No other house has access to your… talent. I keep a very short leash on my prized subjects. No interviews or appearances without my consent.” 

Ciel shrugged. With how much of an introvert he was, he couldn’t see himself enjoying interviews or appearances.

“Finally, you’re to keep your identity a secret. I have three months to convince the fashion world that your brother has returned from a well-deserved hiatus. That means as of tomorrow morning, every decision in regards to your appearance and your mannerisms will be taken by me -- uncontestedly.”

Ciel had taken great pains to erase his brother from his life. He’d changed simple things like his style, his hair, his glasses. Had taken years to undo what ballet had done for his perfect posture, for his gait and grace. Even the cadence of his speech had been subject to change, anything to get away from those daily reminders. And now to revert back to it? To look in the mirror, only to see _him_ , was worse by far than to submit to someone’s whim on the way he presented himself to the world. 

He finished his burger and wiped his fingers of the grease they’d left behind. “Fine,” he uttered, trying not to give away his trepidation. “But just so you know, I don’t buy this brother-being-on-hiatus bullshit you’re peddling. If I work for you, it’s to figure out who killed my brother.” 

It was Sebastian’s turn to snort. “Of course, Phantomhive. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that you were evicted prematurely this morning.”

“H-how do you know about that?” Ciel choked on his drink as the words met him like a physical blow to the gut. 

“Real estate is a good investment. I could hardly pass up on a gentrification project when it fell into my lap.” 

“You bastard.” Ciel was speechless after that. Angry, actually. The clump of half-masticated food seemed to grow so heavy on his tongue that it felt suddenly impossible to swallow. 

Sebastian stood, leaving his corporate waste on the table under Ciel’s tray. “I’ll see that you sleep well tonight, Phantomhive. Heat and a roof over your head. There will be a car waiting for you tomorrow. Be ready and outside by nine a.m. We have a lot of work to do.”

By the time Ciel lumbered home, much of his rage had simmered to resentment. A plastic bag from Boots’ pharmacy had been left on his doorstep, filled to the brim with bottled water, cold lozenges, ibuprofen and decongestants. He stuffed his unsigned contract between medications and ascended the flight of stairs with the same kind of determination as someone scaling Mount Everest.

Inside, he padded to his warm room, downing water and pills, relieved to see the small night light illuminating the side of his bed as evening gently caressed the city. 

Sleep had been swift and solid. He'd missed the neon lights turning on and the hour at which they'd been turned off. Ciel was only coming to when a familiar buzzing caught his attention. His phone danced on his night table, vibrating until he smacked it and brought to his ear. 

"Yeah?" He answered groggily, clearing his throat.

"It's ten to nine, Phantomhive. I've given you back your heat, your flat, your electricity and your phone; the least you can do for me is be punctual." 

"I got ten minutes," he answered and promptly pressed the _end_ button. 

The hot water felt great, the drops like fingers massaging his shoulder and scalp. As they flowed down the drain, so too did most of yesterday's headaches and congestion. He would have loved nothing more than to stay in the shower all morning.

Then his phone buzzed again. 

He didn't pick up this time, only brushed his teeth, threw on a ratty, charity shop t-shirt, jeans, sneakers and rushed out the door. 

A black Rolls Royce was parked by the curb, sticking out in Ciel’s neighbourhood almost as badly as an erection leaving Buckingham Phallus. Through the tinted window, a driver couldn’t be seen, but the reflection that blinked back at Ciel was more gangly and awkward than usual. Not for long though, the window came down with a predictable automatic whirr and a kindly, old man gave him a curt nod. 

“Yes, Mr. Michaelis, I believe I have him now. Glasses, dishevelled, looks as though he’s been, pardon the expression, dumpster diving,” the driver said to no one.

“Yes,” Sebastian sighed over the static of a speakerphone, “that would be him.”

“Very well, sir. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.” 

Ciel took it as an invitation into the luxury vehicle. He crossed the front of the car, turning his back on heavy traffic and gave the polished, chrome handle a tug. New car smell permeated every surface of crimson leather. There wasn’t a spec of dust, a smear of a print, anywhere. The seats were plush and comfortable, taking the shape of Ciel’s spine as he leaned back, crossing his ankles. 

“He sat next to you, didn’t he, Tanaka?” 

“Yes, sir,” the old man answered, trying to repress a grin. 

“Phantomhive, you uncultured twat. Get in the back.” 

No more than a meter (and a frosted glass partition) separated the front seat from the back, but Ciel swore it felt more like No-man’s land, leading him right into enemy territory. For all he knew, Sebastian was there, waiting for him, ready to wave his champagne flute with a _‘hon hon hon… Philistine!’_

No. Sebastian wasn’t French. He was just an arsehole. It would be infinitely worse. He’d just lower his sunglasses and look over them, appraising Ciel with a curl of his lip and a snort. A Michaelis sneer was worth a thousand words. 

Tanaka opened the passenger side door, offering Ciel a hand. His eyes darted from the white glove to the nearby storm drain. If that clown movie hadn’t freaked him out so much, it might have been an easier choice. There was likely a recognizable panic related to interactions with Sebastian, a stiffening of the body or total pupil dilation that the driver picked up on, because he bowed lower and whispered, “He’s not there.” 

A minute later, Ciel sat where it was ‘acceptable’, allowing Tanaka to ease them into rush hour. The partition saved Ciel from having to make small talk or further humiliate himself, until the phone set into the seat before him rang shrilly. The partition dropped a crack and Tanaka’s eyes in the rearview mirror were crinkled with a smile. “That call would be for you,” he said, then disappeared behind the partition once more. 

“Hullo?” he answered, curling the wire around his finger nervously. 

“Normally, I would have my assistant making these calls, but we can’t have anyone knowing about this cloak and dagger of ours, Phantomhive.”

Ciel opened his mouth to interrupt, but couldn’t get a word in edgewise as Sebastian plowed on. 

“Breakfast is on the centre console for you. Once you finish, there’s sugarless gum there as well. Please do the beauty department a favour and have a few pieces before getting here.” 

Ciel was fingering the pieces of fresh fruit on the plate before the phone’s connection died. Half a grapefruit sat on the ornate plate like a depressing centrepiece, flanked by a spoon and no sweetener. 

He knocked on the partition, “Hey! Do you have any sugar packets up there? Like in case someone is diabetic or something?” 

The driver chuckled, shaking his head. 

Ciel fell back into the seat, wishing he had money to bribe Tanaka to swing around to Happy Donuts. None of this stuff was appetizing. Orange slices? Garnish! Hard-boiled egg whites? Penance! A single cube of cheese? Torture!

He gave up on breakfast and sent Grell a text to let her know he wouldn’t be coming in today. Too sick, he told her. Lies were what she deserved after saddling him down with cleanup yesterday. Still, he apologized profusely and turned off his phone to allay his guilty conscience. 

They pulled up to a building that was not Sebastian’s warehouse. It was larger with all the trappings of modern minimalism. Half the building stood naked and exposed, its large windows giving a glimpse into a whirlwind of activity. 

“Here’s your stop,” the driver said as he opened the door for Ciel. 

At a loss for how to tip him, Ciel grabbed a pack of gum from the console and plopped two pieces out of the foil into the man’s elegant hand. “Thank you, Tanaka.” 

Two more pieces found themselves in Ciel’s mouth as he stepped over the threshold into one of the most decadent reception rooms he’d ever seen. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, throwing resplendent prisms onto the black marble floor. Sparse, red furniture was cleverly laid out, encouraging mingling in small groups. He approached one, a duo, clad in red wrap jackets with deep pockets and makeup brush belts not unlike those his mother’s aestheticians used to wear when they made house calls. 

“Hi,” he tapped one on the shoulder, “I’m looking--”

“For Sebastian!” the one with marooned pigtails exclaimed, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “You’re here, and you look very much like--”

“Shhh, Rin. It’s a secret,” the one with the black bob interrupted demurely. “Come this way, he’s waiting for you.” 

Ciel followed the women up the grand, central staircase and down a hall lined frame after frame with enlarged _Époque_ covers. Twice, his twin leered at him, barely recognizable amidst a bevy of accessories, makeup and extravagant fabric. Aroused by regret, he shifted his gaze to his feet. He shouldn’t have come. It wasn’t too late - the contract had not yet been signed. But what else could he do? He’d blown all his savings, all his inheritance. All he had left was a meagre job as a barista and a shit flat he couldn’t even afford. 

“Here we are, Mr. Michaelis, sir,” Mao said brightly, pulling a semi-reluctant Ciel into a beauty parlour. Luck favoured the designer today. No grey clouds. No rain. Just sunlight pouring into the space from a dozen skylights cut artistically into the ceiling. 

“Strip,” Sebastian commanded in a clipped tone by way of greeting. He sat cross-legged in an armchair, clipboard in hand, measuring tape around his neck. 

Ciel looked from one aesthetician to the other, wondering which Sebastian had so boldly ordered. Fantastic, he thought, the designer was a sadist _and_ a pervert. 

“He means you,” said a warm voice from behind. A woman of striking beauty emerged from a washroom, a tissue held close to her painted lips. She was clad fashionably in red: hair, clothes, shoes, and wore the colour like a spider lily in full bloom. “I’m sorry, I’d shake your hand, but I’ve taken ill these last few mornings.” 

“You’re sure it’s not the boy’s ghastly appearance?” Sebastian teased her. It was the first time Ciel denoted a hint of kindness behind anything he’d heard the man say. 

“You’re so rude, Sebastian. Look at him,” she said circling Ciel, “good little body, healthy hair, pale, doll-like, great skin like his brother. No, better,” she addressed him now, “I bet you don’t drink or do drugs at all, do you sweetie?” she pinched his cheek and watched it quickly spring back. “You’re so hydrated. What moisturizer do you use?”

“Moisturizer?” 

Sebastian snorted. 

“None?” she inquired, impressed. “Then you must drink a lot of water…”

“Only because everything else is out of his budget.” Sebastian got up from the chair and joined them. His features hardened, a sign that he wanted to get to business. 

“Ah, to be young and poor again,” the woman sighed dramatically. “It’s always easier to remain trim when one has nothing to eat.” 

“Quite. But we’re hardly here to be nostalgic; let’s move this along, shall we? Ciel, this is Madam Red, Editor in Chief at Époque. Red, meet the real Ciel Phantomhive.” 

Ciel smiled shyly, almost apologetically. What was he supposed to say? He loved every issue she published? That he was a huge fan? “Époque is the only fashion magazine I read,” he compromised with a half-lie. 

Sebastian gave him a knowing look that teetered somewhere between amusement and pity. “It hasn’t done him much good, I’m afraid.” 

“All the better, Sebastian,” Madam Red took the seat the designer had previously occupied. She warmed her hands holding a coffee cup from the franchise that owned Ciel’s café and inhaled the drink deeply, calmingly. “It’s like hiring a new worker. No experience means no bad habits.” 

“I daresay you’ll be eating those words soon enough,” Sebastian called over his shoulder. He unfurled the measuring ribbon from his neck and fixed Ciel with a penetrating look that could have meant a great many things, just none that filled Ciel with confidence. “Now stop stalling and strip, Phantomhive.” 

Ciel blanched, choosing to look anywhere but Sebastian. He focused on the accent wall at the back of the room. The wallpaper was one of those black and white imperial trellis patterns that lent decadence to any space. He traced the lines with his eyes, one panel, two panels, three panels and on the fourth, he noticed a flaw. The panels didn’t line up perfectly. It was irksome and could not be unseen. It disfigured the room like a blemish, like a blister. He was gripped by the urge to tear it off the walls and start from scratch. To conceal the imperfection. 

The way he’d concealed his own imperfection for nearly a decade. 

A baggy shirt here. A layer there. And to what end? What difference had it made when it simply led him to a new audience? A new market to judge him. To pick him apart. To use his body once more for profit. 

“Phantomhive, do I need to undress you myself?” 

Pale bloomed to pink as it crept over Ciel’s nose and cheeks. “No,” he answered too quickly, toeing off his left sneaker. He swayed, almost losing his balance and had to steady himself on Sebastian’s bicep. 

“Here you were throwing shade at the industry the other day,” the designer pointed out, snark already caressing his tone, “and you show up at Époque HQ sporting a worn-out pair of Converse, which, I might add, is a timeless fashion piece. You’re clearly not as helpless as you appear.”

The antagonism recalibrated Ciel’s nerve. He kicked off the other sneaker, held his breath and removed his Nirvana t-shirt. “Thanks,” he exhaled, “they’re second-hand. Charity shop, three blocks down from my place. Nice lady. Can’t complain.”

Just as Sebastian was about to speak, probably to take back his half-assed compliment, Ciel interrupted. “Seven pounds.” He put up seven fingers to make sure he was understood. “Seven. A bargain.” 

“Stalling,” Sebastian mocked under his breath, pointing to Ciel’s jeans with his pencil. 

Ciel schooled his face into a neutral expression and pushed the denim down, careful to keep his boxer-briefs in place. Why hadn’t he worn different undergarments? At least something of a solid colour, rather than sushi rolls and sashimi splashed over his groin and rear. 

A light breeze made Ciel shiver and he crossed his arms, holding his elbows, partly out of chill, partly to cover himself. He was painfully aware of everything in his surroundings: dripping faucet, creaking floors, aestheticians whispering - especially the feel of Sebastian’s measuring tape gliding along his body. 

“Let your arms drop.” 

He did. They hung limply, numb at his side. With pencil in mouth, Sebastian stretched the tape over his chest, then scratched a number onto his clipboard. Measured down the side of his arm, bent his elbow, then jotted another number. Expert hands slid down Ciel’s flanks, large and warm, fingers slipping over and between his ribs, then lower to the narrowest part of his waist. 

“Hmm… I can almost make out yesterday’s Quarter Pounder.” Sebastian’s thumbs dug into Ciel’s non-existent belly, squeezing almost as if he couldn’t help himself. “No more fast food,” he taunted, moving to measure his hips. 

Ciel shivered. “Just worry about keeping your own Quarter Pounder in your pants,” he grumbled under his breath. 

“What?”

“N-nothing,” he countered, awkwardly holding his arms out. 

Behind them, Madam Red huffed, her bottom lip pushed out. “You went to McDonald’s without me, Sebastian?”

“Since when do you like that filth?” 

She shrugged. “I dunno. I used to love it in college. Gave it up when my metabolism came to a screeching halt at thirty. Been craving a milkshake lately, though.” 

“You realize there is exactly no milk in those ‘ _milkshakes_ ’” Sebastian informed her, going down on one knee. He counted two and a half centimetres from Ciel’s groin and slid the measuring just tape under the hem of his underwear. 

Reflexively, Ciel slapped his hand away. Hard. The sharp sound might not have echoed in the room, but it rang in his own ears. 

A taut silence hung between them. Nobody dared to breathe. Not a single person moved. Rin and Mao stood there, gaping almost comically. Madam Red had been in the process of bringing a cup of coffee to her lips when she froze like in a game of statue. 

It was only when the shock faded from Sebastian’s affronted face and he held Ciel’s thigh in a firm, almost punishing grip, that the others went about their business. 

“Quit being so jumpy, Phantomhive,” Sebastian muttered so low, that only they two could hear, “you’re acting as if nobody’s ever touched you before.” He grinned wolfishly at him, hand lingering at Ciel’s inner thigh. Fingers grazed the soft flesh as they trailed the ribbon down the inside of his leg. For all the skill Sebastian was rumoured to possess, there was no reason, other than intimidation, for it to take so long. 

“This feels like the ninth layer of Hell,” Ciel gritted back defiantly, “Is that why they call you the Devil’s Tailor?” 

Sebastian rose again, spinning Ciel around. He measured nape to waist, then cross-back. “I suspect there are a lot of reasons, but the truth would actually terrify you.” 

There were few things that legitimately scared Ciel; vanity and arrogance hardly made that list. “Unless you go around parading in skin suits you make up à-la-Buffalo Bill, I think I could handle it.” 

“Indeed. And what exactly did you handle here, I wonder?” Sebastian asked, outlining the slight ridge of a long, arc-shaped scar along Ciel’s left side. “It’s quite unsightly. Do you have a medical condition I should be aware of?” 

“No. Mind your own business,” Ciel bit back, clapping his hand over his left kidney. 

Madam Red worried her bottom lip. “That might be a problem, Sebastian. His twin certainly didn’t have one.”

“It could be explained away with a lie. A jet ski accident. Foolishness while drinking at Cannes. And your editing crew could work their magic easily enough. I’ll have to get creative with draping.” He handed his clipboard to Rin, rounded to Ciel’s front and caught the boy’s face between his long fingers, tilting it up to his own. “Are you worth this effort?” 

“You’re the one who showed up on _my_ doorstep, remember?” 

“Touché,” Sebastian sneered, removing Ciel’s glasses and letting them fall to the floor. Size forty-six Oxfords came down on them with a deafening crunch, grinding them into the marble. “He’s all yours, ladies.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading chapter 2! 
> 
> M & I would love to hear what you thought! Favourite parts? Predictions? Questions? Send them our way through the comments! <3 
> 
> A huge thank you to @caitycat for her beta!


	3. Even The Devil Was Once An Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not standing on a street corner in Whitechapel at night! Do the words ‘Jack the Ripper’ mean anything to you?” 
> 
> “Please, you’re not even close to his type, Ciel. You don’t have a uterus.” 
> 
> “Maybe so, but he had a thing for kidneys, didn’t he? I have two of those.” 
> 
> VJ made a disgusting slurping sound behind his hand. “Mmm… Kidney beans and a nice Chianti. Delicious.” 
> 
> Ciel tsked and smacked his twin with his textbook. “It’s _fava_ beans, Clarice. You’re mixing up your serial killers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> 
> 
> Title: Even The Devil Was Once An Angel  
> By: [M](https://paradixenfer.tumblr.com/)  
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> __  
> “Trendy is the last stage before tacky” — Karl Lagerfeld  
> 

~*~ Ten Years Ago ~*~

“You’re so lucky you have a twin,” the substitute ballet teacher told VJ as he was packing his towel and slippers into his bag. “I wish I had one.”

“Why? Do you need an organ transplant or something? Because that’s about all they’re good for.” 

VJ watched his twin hobble away, dragging his own bag behind him. He’d gotten a headstart to the car, but since he was sporting a broken, bloody toenail, VJ knew he’d be able to overtake him. “Bye, Miss,” he called, halfway out of the studio. 

He sprinted to Volvo, bumping into Ciel in the process and claimed the front seat. 

“Hey! It’s my turn in the front!” Ciel complained.

“Losers weepers,” VJ smirked before shutting the door. He dug his iPod out from his jacket pocket, inserted his earbuds and let it drown out the sound of his mother’s interrogation. 

Why did everyone think twins were so special? They shared genes. Big deal. They didn’t share fingerprints. If you couldn’t commit a crime and blame it on someone with whom you occupied a womb, what was even the point? 

He felt the backseat door slam and vindictive knees digging into his seat. Behind him, Ciel was whining - he knew it without hearing it. It wasn’t a twin thing - his brother was just that predictable. He lowered his music to confirm his suspicion and sure enough, Ciel was mid-sentence in a rant about ‘ _if you’re gonna sit in the front with Mum, at least talk to her…_ ’. 

VJ rolled his eyes. “Why? You’re just gonna read your shitty goth book. How’s that any different?” 

His mother pulled out an earbud. “Vincent Junior, you’re twelve, don’t say ‘shitty’.” 

_Vincent Junior._

Curse of the firstborn. To be saddled with the father’s name. If he’d been born second, he could have had a nice, marketable name like _Ciel_. Something memorable. 

It was meant to be, he supposed. Being first came naturally to him. Maybe not in school or in his ballet class - that was Ciel. VJ was first where it mattered: popularity contests, best-dressed lists, social ladders. 

And Instagram followers. Well, at least in his year at school. Twenty thousand, three hundred and thirty-eight - no, forty-two - as of now. He’d gained four followers during his lesson. It must have been the artsy-fartsy shot he took of his feet in ballet slippers. God, he hoped they weren’t foot fetishists. _Gross. Whatever._ A follower was a follower. He didn’t care what they did to his pictures as long as they didn’t tell him about it. That was an automatic block - in most cases. Sometimes he ignored it if the follower in question had decent IG clout. 

He refreshed his feed on his iPhone 4 and scrolled through what he’d missed. 

Paula from a grade lower than him was posing in a bikini on a beach in Cuba. _Slut._

Wendy was spending spring break in New York, eating pizza in Time Square. _Put the pizza down, you fat pig._

Annie was at a spa with a thick, gunky mask on her face and cucumbers on her eyes. _Just get the plastic surgery, girl, you need it._

Everyone in the world seemed to have more money than they did. The Phantomhives weren’t exactly poor, but they weren’t going over to America every year for a holiday. And they didn’t belong to some fancy gentleman’s club where he’d get to network with important people. His parents weren’t important, after all. Just a firefighter and a nurse. Big Whoop.

Halfway home, his mother pulled into a drive-thru for coffee. She tried to offer him a tray of warm drinks, which he refused - he was too busy double-tapping new collections by McQueen, Michaelis, Givenchy and Kors. Rachel passed them over to Ciel instead so that she could pull back into traffic. 

“Imagine having to work there?” he said to no one in particular, blindly reaching back for his Blonde Vanilla Latte. “I’d rather die.” 

“It’s a job,” Ciel deadpanned, handing his mother her coffee. “It pays the bills.” 

“So does hooking,” he said under his breath. He gazed longingly at a Louis Vuitton bag featured on the company’s Story, tapping back just so he could look at it over and over again. When his mom stopped at a red light, he shoved the phone in her face. “This is the one I was talking to you about the other day, Mum. This is the one I want.” 

Rachel pushed her bifocals down her nose to get a better look. Her face betrayed nothing. No interest. No consideration. But no outright refusal either. 

Until she saw the price. 

The shock caused her to let go of the break and she nearly rear-ended a Ford in front of them. “Absolutely not. It’s almost two thousand pounds!” 

“Two thousand pounds is peanuts when you consider the status it could buy me,” he argued, capturing the story in a screenshot. 

“What status do you need in Year Eight? Who do you know that has a bag like that?” 

“Sarah Jessica Parker, the Kardashians, JLo, the Beckhams…” 

“Of your age...” 

“The Jenners…” 

“Who are the Jenners?” Rachel asked. Worry masked her face. “Are those our new neighbours? The ones who moved in last week? I forgot their name. I thought it began with an ‘S’.”

“It does, Mum. They’re the Spears. What VJ’s talking about is reality television,” Ciel said between sips of his hot chocolate in the back seat. 

A sudden musty stench wafting to the front seat made VJ look back. Ciel had taken off his shoe and sock to air out his broken nail. Drying blood was caked to his foot while tiny droplets oozed from the wound and dribbled onto the leather of the seat. _Disgusting_. None of this stopped Ciel from continuing with his know-it-all lecture. 

“They probably get that stuff for free, Vin. You know, product placement and all that. We learned about it in advanced English. All of it’s so gaudy. Nobody would ever buy that on purpose.” 

VJ snorted, half twisting in his seat to look his nose down at his brother. “Of course, _you_ would say that.” 

“It’s just a bag. I’m sorry I don’t lose sleep over people judging me for what I wear.” 

“It’s not just a bag. It’s fashion.” VJ unbuckled his seatbelt to turn a hundred and eighty degrees. He ignored his mother’s protests, narrowing his eyes on his twin, who quite frankly, barely deserved that distinction when he couldn’t care less about the way he looked with his shaggy hair and mismatched clothes. “It tells the world what you like, what you stand by. It says something about you as a person!”

“Yeah, you’re right. It says, ‘Look at me everyone, I’m a pretentious dick who’ll spend two thousand pounds on an ugly bag to fit in and then tell the world that fashion makes me an individual’.” 

“You’re so self-righteous!” VJ shrieked, throwing his ballet bag at Ciel over the seat.

“And you’re egotistical!” said Ciel, throwing it back, accidentally hitting the front console. 

Rachel blew up. “Boys! Stop it right now.” Sharply, she turned her head towards VJ, “The answer is no. If you want that bag, you’ll have to save up for it.”

“But that could take ages,” he whined. 

“Not if you serve coffee,” Ciel smiled behind his styrofoam cup. “Or hook.” 

Rachel flicked her eyes upwards to the rearview mirror. “That’s enough out of both of y--” 

And all three lurched forward as the Volvo collided with the Ford Focus.

“For the last time, your face is fine,” Ciel sighed, sitting on his bed across from his twin’s. He fell back, arms spread, more shaken by his toenail falling off than their fender bender. And why shouldn’t he be? He’d only slid off the back seat onto the floor. Otherwise, he didn’t seem any the worse for wear.

VJ turned on the LED lights of his makeup mirror and bounced nervously on his exercise ball before it. He kept touching his face, fingers trembling as he examined himself. “I don’t want it to be fine. It has to be perfect. Still. Perfect.” 

“Mum has a broken rib thanks to that airbag. Count yourself lucky, it could have been worse.” 

“How, Ciel? Tell me. How could it have been worse?” VJ glared at his brother in the mirror. It was easier than turning his neck to do it. Just a little whiplash, the EMT had told him. No big deal. It was better than slamming his face into the front console. Breaking his nose… Maybe his parents would have sprung for a nose job if the insurance covered it? Nah. The collision had been his mother’s fault. If she had just kept her eyes on the road like she was supposed to. “The car is totalled. Now dad has to dish out money for a rental until we buy a new one. And that means they definitely won’t buy me a new bag.” 

“Get over your bleeding bag, already!” 

“Shut up. This is _your_ fault,” he accused. “You had to get the last word in…” 

Silence. 

“That hooking comment sent Mum over the edge…” VJ tried again. 

More silence. 

“Who launches a bag over the front seat when someone’s driving?” 

“I know, okay?!” Ciel snapped. “God. Just go back to admiring yourself, Narcissus.” 

“I have big plans for this face,” he said, opening the drawer to his left. He took out baby wipes and facial cream. “I have to take care of it. Then, I won’t have to ask Mum to buy me anything.” 

Ciel hummed noncommittally, grabbing a book from a stack on his bedside table. He groaned when he turned over to read, probably feeling as stiff as VJ. 

There was a time when he and Ciel shared everything. The same cot until they were ready for their respective _big boy beds_. The same clothes up until four years ago. The same face until last year when puberty set in and VJ started an intensive skincare routine that also included drinking ten glasses of water to avoid breakouts and blemishes. He washed his face twice a day, moisturized like mad, occasionally used a face mask - when he was particularly stressed. 

Like now. 

The cold cream was refreshing. The scent of camomile and cucumbers, calming. He shuffled to his bed, lay on his back and opened the camera app on his phone. Filter after filter, he tried to decide which brought out the blue of his eyes best with the green of the cream. He pouted his lips - not in a duckface, but in one that made him look pitiable without looking pitiful. 

_**Car Crash Stress Facial** _ , he typed for a caption. _#iminsomuchpain #sendmelove #imluckytobealive #tellmeimstillbeautiful #cielphantomhive_

“Are you seriously posting pictures of yourself on Instagram?” Ciel said from behind his book. It was held so close to his face that the only part of his profile VJ could make out were his ears and hair. 

“If Mum knew you were reading without your nerd glasses, she’d be right pissed.” 

“Well, I refuse to wear contacts. They’re uncomfortable. And poking your finger in your eyes is gross.” 

“What’s gross is how you don’t care at all what you look like. If we would have died in that car crash, do you know what you’d be remembered for?” VJ asked, hitting **Share** on Instagram before sitting up and turning his body so it faced his brother’s bed. “People would only remember you because you’re my twin. But not just _my twin_. The ugly twin. The weird twin.” 

Ciel slammed his book shut. “Yeah?” He got up. “Yeah? You keep telling yourself that.” He shambled to their bedroom door. “Because the moment they search up _my_ name, it’s your pretty face they’re gonna see. What kind of legacy is going to show up when they search ‘Vincent Junior Phantomhive?’ Not a goddamn thing.” 

VJ sprang to his feet, threw his phone on his bed and followed his brother into the hallway. “Ciel, wait!” He blurted, catching him by the shirt only to have his hand smacked away. He exhaled a hiss and seeing that he had his twin’s attention, pressed on. “I know today’s bad with your toe and the car and all. And maybe I shouldn’t have said what I said...”

“Are you apologizing? Actually apologizing?”

“What? No! I was just going to say, if you’d just legally switch names with me like I’ve been asking for the past year, I could actually get credit for all the hard work I’m putting into the brand ‘Ciel Phantomhive’.” 

“I don’t fucking believe you,” Ciel shook his head incredulously. He continued into the kitchen, leaving VJ to shrug and return to his room. 

The notification light was blinking blue on his phone when he picked it up. Already, some six hundred and forty people had liked his new post. There were a few comments, among them: _‘aww poor baby’, ‘let me kiss & make it better’, ‘what mask r u using?’_ and _‘still beautiful’_. He smiled, about to update his Twitter, when a message popped up on his account. 

Blavat Sky. 

The user wasn’t unfamiliar. VJ had checked out his profile a few days ago when Blavat had liked over two hundred of his posts in one sitting. The user himself hadn’t had many pictures up at the time. One of them had been his profile picture - a nice headshot of a bloke with pastel hair grinning into a professional camera. He was cute, but nothing special. 

**Blavat Sky** : _Are you a model?_

“What a shitty pick-up line,” VJ groaned to himself, texting the words as he said them out loud. “If you look that mediocre, you better have money or brains to make up for it.” He was about to hit send, but thought better of it. The text was deleted, replaced with the following standard response when he was asked this same question. 

**Ciel Phantomhive** : _Bold of you to assume that I’m not._

**Blavat Sky** : _:) You’re feisty. It comes through in your pictures._

**Ciel Phantomhive** : _Thanks… I guess._

**Blavat Sky** : _I only ask because I didn’t see a link to your modelling agency in your bio._

Well, duh, he was still undiscovered. Rachel and Vincent hadn’t helped by refusing to put him in modelling classes. Said they were useless compared to his dance classes. To them, modelling wasn’t something you learned, you were just born photogenic and that was that. Lucky for them, part of it was true. VJ _was_ photogenic. Felt more at home in front of a camera than anywhere else. Needed the spotlight like flowers needed the sun. 

Triple dots blinked next to Blavat’s picture and before VJ could type anything, his message came up. 

**Blavat Sky** : _Lemme try again. Would you like to be a model? A professional one?_

**Ciel Phantomhive** : _Why are you asking? Do you have connections?_

**Blavat Sky** : _Kind of ha ha ha. Check out my bio._

Reluctantly, VJ backed out of the conversation. Blavat’s profile had changed drastically since the last time he’d seen it. His followers had exploded. He had a few million. His occupation now read ‘ _Agent_ ’. Under that, a website: www.aristocracymodelmanagement.com. He was even followed by celebrities! Miley Cyrus, Adam Lambert, Kim Kardashian… And his feed was now filled with pictures of beautiful people in iconic locations around the world: Moscow, New York, Tokyo... 

VJ was not aware of his trembling. His stomach flitted, his eyes swam with excited tears. He blinked once, twice to shed them, then looked up the agency online. The site was professional, legit like Elite’s. Clean. Minimalist. They had offices in London, Milan, Paris and L.A. From the ‘Development’ tab, stunning face after stunning face stared back at him in black and white portraits. The ‘News’ portion was a collection of covers from Vogue to Paper. There were editorials, coverage from fashion week and whole designer collections. Everything. He recognized some of the models and photographers’ names, even the makeup artists and hairstylists. 

A fine layer of dried mask rained onto his phone screen. His smile was so wide that his cheekbones hurt and cracked the clay stuck to them. And he’d allowed it just this once; crow’s feet wouldn’t happen after one moment of happiness. 

A fit of giggles burst through his lips and he brought the phone to his chest, hugging it like it was the most precious thing in the world. In his excitement, he’d missed two messages from Blavat.

**Blavat Sky** : _So what’d you think?_

**Blavat Sky** : _Hello? Are you still there?_

VJ was so glad it wasn’t a call. He was breathless with exhilaration. Getting high on the rush of adrenaline that only this level of validation could cause. 

**Ciel Phantomhive** : _Still here! Just checking out your work._

Play it cool, he reminded himself. Being over-eager is unattractive. 

**Blavat Sky** : _If you’re on the website, go ahead and click on some of the models in Development. You’ll notice most of them were discovered on Insta… like you._

“Like me,” VJ whispered in the empty room. “Discovered, like me.” 

He did as he was told. Abby Becker was the first. Her portfolio was simple. Measurements. Polaroids. Bio. Date discovered and where: four days ago, Instagram. It was the same for Ryker Schmidt, but seven days ago. And Jules King was eleven days ago. 

He scrolled further down. Sam Ouma caught his eye. He’d seen him in Époque just last month in a feature with several models slated to take to the runway for Michaelis in the next Paris Fashion Week. 

“This is incredible,” he mouthed, clicking on Sam’s portfolio. How had he never heard of Aristocracy Model Management? He called up another tab on his phone and Googled Sam Ouma. He read through his Wikipedia page and there it was: _‘Discovered by Blavat Sky circa 2009.’_. “That’s just a year ago!” VJ said. “In a year from now, I could be in Époque!”

**Ciel Phantomhive** : _This is pretty cool._

**Blavat Sky** : _As you can tell, we’re pretty selective. No mingers here. And that’s because we have a stringent recruitment process. It’s easy to fake pretty online with filters and photoshop._

VJ’s heart galloped. He bit his lip guiltily, mentally tabulating all two-thousand plus pictures and selfies he’d taken to try to come up with an instance where he might have altered one. 

**Ciel Phantomhive** : _I mean filters are pretty standard on Instagram, but I’ve never used a beauty editor or whatever. I don’t have to. I’m pretty much perfect irl._

**Blavat Sky** : _That’s what everybody says, Ciel. Some people I meet… they have bad skin. Double chins. Scars. Lazy eyes. They’re shorter than they say. Fatter than they say. Some have scoliosis. I’ve literally seen everything._

**Ciel Phantomhive** : _But I’m not lying. I swear. What you see is what you get with me. How can I prove it to you? We can Facetime if you want!_

**Blavat Sky** : _I dunno, Ciel. Facetime can be pretty deceptive too. If only I wasn’t flying back to L.A tomorrow morning, we could have set up an interview._

**Ciel Phantomhive** : _What about tonight? It’s only..._

VJ looked at the time on his phone. 

**Ciel Phantomhive** : _5:30. I can meet you after your dinner if you’d like. Just say where. Then you can see in person that I’m exactly the same as my pictures._

It seemed to take Blavat an eternity to answer. With every second that passed, VJ’s heart broke a tiny bit. He had to resist the urge to throw his phone against the wall, to send him an all-in-caps screaming message: ‘HELLO? ANSWER ME!’ 

He paced his room from one end to the other with tears sliding down his muddied face, staining his black shirt in clay splotches. 

“Answeransweransweransweranswer…” he mumbled, holding his phone so tightly the tips of his fingers had gone white. “Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease…" 

But there were no three little dots on his screen. Nobody texting on the other end. Maybe the app was frozen? That happened, right? 

He restarted his phone and a minute later when nothing had changed, he fell in a heap on the floor, burying his face dramatically into his arms. A notification came through a moment later. His prayers had been heard. His patience, rewarded. 

“About time,” VJ exhaled, wiping his tear-smudged screen on his jeans before unlocking his phone. He blew out another calming breath and read the notification: 

_Battery: 15%_. 

No Instagram notification. Okay, so maybe another six hundred and eight people had liked his post, but big fucking deal. What was even the point if he wasn’t getting noticed by people who mattered? 

Technically speaking, this was VJ’s first real taste of rejection and he didn’t like it. It was worse than brushing your teeth, then drinking orange juice right away. Worse than expecting caviar to taste as good as it costs, but being left with salty fish on your tongue. Worse even than throwing up in your own mouth and swallowing it. 

He almost felt bad for the kids in his grade who ate lunch alone in the bathroom stalls or those being picked last for teams. But that was nothing compared to the rebuff he felt. Those were small hurts that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Nothing a little therapy or cutting couldn’t fix. 

A wave of renewed heartache overtook him and he shook on the floor, choking on his sobs. 

“Jesus Christ. What’s the matter with you? Did you lose a follower on Instagram or something?” Ciel asked, mouth muffled with chips. He held a plateful with a blob of mayo taking up half the space. 

VJ had no witty comeback. He didn’t have it in him to take the piss out of Ciel by telling him he’d get fat eating junk food. All he could do was keep his mouth shut. Bottle up his hurt since nobody in the world could possibly understand what he was going through, least of all his twin. For one whole minute, VJ had known perfect bliss. His parents would have been so proud of him. His friends would have been so jealous. Ciel would have too, even if he would never have admitted it. 

“Hey, Moaning Myrtle...” Ciel said between bites as he sat on his bed, “your phone buzzed.” 

“Don’t…” VJ hiccuped, “joke about that.” He mopped up his tears on the sleeve, trying to catch his breath. “Don’t,” he repeated, still chancing a peek in case his brother wasn’t lying. There was in fact a message waiting for him on Instagram. 

**Blavat Sky** : _It’s a school night for you isn’t it? I doubt your parents would want you going out that late on your own._

VJ ‘s hope bubbled. He stood on wobbly legs and walked over to his make up mirror where red-rimmed eyes stared back at him. Shit. How would he get rid of that? 

**Ciel Phantomhive** : _My parents aren't home. They won't care. Where's your office? I'll come right away._

**Blavat Sky** : _Hm. Office won't work. I'm on location for a shoot. I mean, I guess I could kill two birds with one stone and have you come here? If things go well, there's a photographer… I could ask him to do headshots if you don't have any for your portfolio yet..._

"Oh my god." VJ fanned his eyes to keep from crying again. A real photographer? What would he wear? What would he do with his hair? He ran out of his room with his phone and into the bathroom to wash off his mask. 

**Ciel Phantomhive** : _I don't have anything official._

**Ciel Phantomhive** : _Where's the photoshoot? I can leave as soon as I change._

**Blavat Sky** : _Don't go to any trouble. Jeans and a t-shirt are good. I just… I feel bad dragging you out here by yourself, Ciel. It's getting dark already. I'd feel much better if you could bring a friend._

**Ciel Phantomhive** : _I'll bring my twin!_

**Blavat Sky** : _Perfect. Your bio says you're in London. Are you familiar with the city?_

VJ wrote down the address Blavat gave him and looked it up on Mapquest. If he took the Underground he'd be there in just over an hour. That would mean another hour back. The earliest he'd be home is nine and he wanted to be here before his parents returned from the hospital. 

Once in his room, face washed, hair brushed, he changed into a black, fitted v-neck t-shirt and artfully faded jeans. He threw on his Burberry knockoff scarf and the peacoat he got for Christmas, then gave himself a good look. 

Very metropolitan, he thought. He could pass for fourteen, at least. 

"Where are you... going?" Ciel half-asked, half-belched, pushing his empty plate aside. 

"We," he stressed, trying to smile through his disgust, "are going out. Come on, get ready. And get your wallet." 

"No way. I'm in my pyjamas and I've got a test to study for. Besides, unless you're carrying me, I'm not going anywhere. This hurts like a bitch," said Ciel, pointing to his toe. 

VJ forced a laugh, hoping it sounded natural. Hoping their earlier spat had been put behind them. "How do you know what a bitch hurts like?" 

“Your mum told me,” Ciel smirked, picking up his history book and pulling the cap off a highlighter with his teeth. VJ didn’t miss the look of longing he gave the dog-eared novel next to his lamp. 

“Self-burn, nice,” he smiled back at him, plopping himself down next to his brother on the bed. He picked up the book entitled _Faust_ and turned it over pretending to read the summary on the back. “Is this any good?” 

Ciel saw through him immediately. “Yes. It’s very good. I’ve read it three times already.” He sighed deeply and his voice dropped in resignation. “What is it you want, Vin?” 

VJ perked up, ignoring the exasperation in the squint of Ciel’s eyes. "Okay. So I was talking to an agent on Insta. He wants to meet up to see if I would be a good fit for his modelling company." 

"And how do you know it's not some fifty-year-old pedo wanking it to your pictures, luring you to god knows where…" 

"You really think that I’m that dumb? I might not be Mr. Straight-A like you are, but I did some research.” 

“What kind of research?” Ciel inquired, highlighting a few lines about the Industrial Revolution. 

“Well, Blavat Sky…” 

“Oh my gosh! Blavat Sky? THE Blavat Sky?” Ciel interrupted, sitting bolt upright, his mouth in a little ‘o’ of surprise. 

“You know him!?!?” 

Ciel fell back against his pillow. “Nah, go on… Guy sounds like a twat though…” 

“He’s not!” 

“Then why were you sobbing two minutes ago?” 

“Something else entirely,” VJ waved his twin off. He wasn’t going to admit he’d been crying because it had taken Blavat four whole minutes to answer. It’s not like the agent was toying with him; the man actually had a job. He was at a photoshoot! “Anyhow, I looked up the website. He was on it. As were a lot of clients. I cross-referenced them just in case too. Ciel, he even has celebrities following him!” 

“I’m pretty sure any con artist could whip something up like that,” Ciel told him, turning the page of his book. 

“For once in your life, can you be happy for me? This is all I’ve ever wanted.” 

“Didn’t you say the same thing about that bag this afternoon?” 

“I didn’t.” VJ took Ciel’s book away from him and grasped his hand. “Please. Come with me. It won’t take long. And we can do it before Mum gets back from the hospital. Imagine how happy it would make her knowing that her son got signed on by a real agent!” 

Ciel’s eyes narrowed. “No. Something seems off, Vin. If he’s so interested, can’t he wait for Mum or Dad to go with you?” 

“He’s leaving tomorrow for the U.S.. Please, Ciel. If I don’t go now, there’s a chance he’ll forget all about me. Or he’ll think I’m not eager enough. I’ll do anything if you go with me. Just say it. Anything you want.” 

VJ hoped his puppy dog face and praying hands were enough. When Ciel still hadn’t said a word after a minute, he blurted: “I’ll never use your name again. I’ll change it on Insta too. Please.” 

“You’ll never use it after today? Ever?” Ciel’s pinky came up, curling the tip of it. 

“Never ever. I promise!” He hooked Ciel’s finger and fell into him for a hug. “Okay, get dressed and let’s go. It’s about an hour away if we walk to the Greenford tube and get off at Whitechapel.” 

Jeans, socks and a pullover assailed Ciel on his bed as VJ tossed them over. He added a baseball cap to the stack to save Ciel from brushing his ratty hair. His brother didn’t have to look impeccable. It was probably better to make him look less attractive. Isn’t that what brides did? Pick an ugly maid of honour so they looked better by comparison in their wedding pictures? 

“I can’t walk that far, Vin. We’re gonna have to switch like four lines. My toe’s throbbing. Look, the nail came clean off. Let me at least wrap it up. And I’m gonna wear slippers.” 

“Okay. Okay.” He shoved Ciel’s head into the hole of his shirt and yanked it down to help him. It took a minute to run to the bathroom to get First Aid supplies. Another five to find what Ciel asked for. And two more to clean and wrap the wound. “There,” he said, satisfied as he got Ciel’s feet into their socks. “Now, do you have money so we can take a cab?” 

Ciel laughed, letting himself get pushed towards the front door. “You want _me_ to pay to get us to _your_ modelling thing?” 

"I’ll pay you back with my first paycheck, I swear!” VJ unceremoniously draped a parka over Ciel and swapped the cap for a proper winter hat. It covered his eyes, pushing his glasses down his nose. “You really would look much better without these, you know.” And he kissed him on the cheek. 

Wiping off his cheek, Ciel ignored the superficial compliment. “I left Mum and Dad a note on my bedside table, in case they come home before us and we’re not back yet. I just don’t want them to worry, especially not Mum. It’s the last thing she needs today,” Ciel explained, wrapping a scarf around his neck as if he were a snowman. 

That was unnecessary, VJ thought, biting his tongue. If Rachel had to stay overnight at the hospital and Vicent came back alone to an empty house, he wouldn’t even care. Leaving a note was drawing attention to a problem that didn’t exist. But he had Ciel on board now; it was better not to argue, not when he was running short on time and empty promises. 

“Shit! I forgot my phone in our room with the directions and whatnot. Call a cab on the landline while I go get it?” VJ raced down the hall before his twin could read his guilty face. His phone was a dead weight in his coat pocket and once he was inside his room, he took it out to check the directions one last time. 11% was left on his battery. It might be enough until he got home as long as he didn’t go on social media. He dimmed the screen to its darkest setting and tucked it back into his jacket. 

As expected, the note had been left on the bedside table. Ciel’s perfect script was unusually slanted, giving it a rushed look. 

_Mum,_

_Gone to some modelling thing with VJ in Whitechapel. Left just after six. Shouldn’t take long._

_Love,_

_Ciel_

Yeah... that wouldn’t do. Paranoid mums were likely to associate Whitechapel with prostitutes and murderers. Rachel would have a coronary if this was what she found. He shoved the note in his pocket and ran out of the room just as Ciel was putting the receiver back on the cradle. 

Should be here in two minutes. Dispatch said to wait outside.” 

VJ thought he knew exactly how Jesus felt to be tempted by Satan for forty days and forty nights in the Judean desert. That’s exactly how long the cab ride seemed to take when he couldn’t play on his phone since he was conserving his battery. Ciel didn’t make it any easier, either. He’d made VJ fetch his history book so he didn’t fall behind on his studying and now that the sun had gone down, the nerd was huddled by the window for any incoming street light.

“That’s not good for your eyes,” he criticized, nudging Ciel’s elbow. “Seriously.” 

“I’m doing it to spite you. Maybe you’ll stop nagging me about contact lenses when I go blind.” 

That was the extent of their small talk. The silence stretched on through Paddington and Marylebone and finally VJ couldn’t take it anymore. He took out his phone, now down to 9%, and closed all his programs except for the modelling agency website. 

In the twenty minutes since VJ last checked it, another model had signed on. She was young, probably only a year or two older than he was. Her face was bland, forgettable-- not that that was necessarily a bad quality for a model, it meant she could be a chameleon. Rock a street look one day and editorial the next. 

He continued to browse the website. With every face he deemed better than his own, he tried to identify imperfections. Some were a stretch - eyes a little too large, a rosebud nose… But Lauren Hutton had built a career on her gapped teeth and Cindy Crawford made facial beauty marks sexy. 

He caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the window and suddenly felt inadequate. Was his hair too limp? His face, too childish? Were his cheekbones not prominent enough? He wasn’t sufficiently tall to be considered ‘statuesque’. Self-doubt brought on a familiar stinging sensation behind his eyes. He felt the tears burn at the corners, then spill down his cheeks. “Don’t cry,” he mumbled to himself, tilting his head back and blinking. 

“Hmm?” Ciel asked, keeping his attention on his book. 

VJ looked at his twin and felt marginally better. They might have been born identical, but Ciel was average at best. He had none of VJ’s charisma. No “it” factor. At the age of twelve, he’d already given up on trying to look presentable, much less appealing. It was almost embarrassing. 

“Do you think you’d mind waiting outside while I go in for my interview?”

“You want me to wait outside? At night? In January?” Ciel asked, incredulous. “I think you’re forgetting that I’m the one doing _you_ a favour.” 

“It won’t take long. I swear. Maybe thirty minutes.” 

“I’m not standing on a street corner in Whitechapel at night! Do the words ‘Jack the Ripper’ mean anything to you?” 

“Please, you’re not even close to his type, Ciel. You don’t have a uterus.” 

“Maybe so, but he had a thing for kidneys, didn’t he? I have two of those.” 

VJ made a disgusting slurping sound behind his hand. “Mmm… Kidney beans and a nice Chianti. Delicious.” 

Ciel tsked and smacked his twin with his textbook. “It’s _fava_ beans, Clarice. You’re mixing up your serial killers.” 

The smile tugging at Ciel’s lips assured VJ that they were fine again. He was so easy to manipulate. Couldn’t hold a grudge, even if he tried. And he had tried. When they were seven, they’d each received a goldfish to teach them responsibility. VJ’s had turned belly-up in a matter of three days. Not to be outdone by Ciel, he decided to flush his twin’s fish down the toilet while Ciel was engrossed in some book. Then, at nine, Rachel had given them identical outfits to wear to school on picture day. Determined to be discernible, VJ had cut Ciel’s hair while his twin slept. It was patchy at the front with bald spots here and there. How Ciel hadn’t noticed was still beyond him to this day. 

The point was, Ciel didn’t stay mad. He’d inherited their mum’s temperament: he was soft-spoken, patient, slow to anger; everything VJ wasn’t. Not that he saw these as flaws. It was better to be outgoing, to be persistent in your wants rather than wait for them to fall in your lap, to be feisty and passionate. 

The cab pulled up to the curb in front of a row of run-down buildings. There were boards on the windows, but light could be seen glowing from inside. 

"Here ya go, boys." The cabby put his car in park and extended his open hand over the seat to be paid. "Do you need me to wait?" 

Suspiciously, Ciel eyed the debris and shitty graffiti that littered Vallance Road. VJ didn’t blame him. It wasn’t what he had in mind when Blavat had told him about being at a photoshoot. The scaffolding erected in front of the buildings looked unsteady with caution tape torn off the vertical tubes. 

“You’re sure this is the place? It looks deserted. Maybe you should text that guy first,” Ciel suggested. 

VJ was already on it. His battery life was at 4% when he opened Instagram and found Blavat in his contacts. 

**Ciel Phantomhive** : _I’m here… I think._

**Blavat Sky** : _It’s not much to look at, but we’re doing an industrial shoot. Is this where you are?_

VJ heaved a sigh of relief. 

**Ciel Phantomhive** : _Yes! Just outside!_

**Blavat Sky** : _Great! Let yourself in. Go to the back of the building and to your right. We’re in the basement! See you in a few minutes._

**Ciel Phantomhive** : _Awesome._

“We’re at the right place,” he said, showing Ciel the picture, “see? And look,” he pointed to the building, “the door’s open a crack.”

Ciel adjusted his glasses and squinted. “Yeah, okay.” He paid the cabby and slid across the seat to exit on VJ’s side.

For a few moments, they didn’t move. While VJ gazed skywards to take a calming breath, Ciel peered down the street which was empty except for two white vans parked a few meters away. 

“Those pedo vans give me the creeps,” Ciel broke the silence, offering a flash of a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. 

“Those aren’t pedo vans,” VJ sighed, trying to check himself out on his phone with the camera turned towards himself, but with such low battery life, no light came on. “Pedo vans have _Free wifi_ or _Free candy_ written on the side. They probably belong to the crew. I bet they needed a lot of light for this shoot.” When Ciel didn’t seem placated, he pinched his cheek in brotherly condescension. “Fine. You can come wait inside. But stay out of sight.”

“Gee, thanks so much. You’d think you were ashamed or something…” 

“Harsh. I’d just hate for them to confuse us.” There was no way in Hell they could, he thought, smiling smugly as he appraised his brother in his puffy parka, fluffy slippers and fluorescent orange cap. “Come on, let’s get out of the cold.” 

He slid his phone into his pocket and with difficulty, he shouldered the door open a smidge more. It was in serious need of oil. The grating sound it made announced his arrival, to whoever was inside and the rest of the street. He managed to squeeze through, but heard Ciel clear his throat indignantly a second later. 

“Dude, you’ve got to lay off the chips and mayo,” he chastised, pulling on Ciel’s arm, while his twin pushed the door open with both hands. 

“It’s the jacket, dumbass. I’m... your... size.” He stumbled into the building as if he’d missed a step, catching himself on his brother with a hiss. “Fuck.” 

VJ surveyed the large open space frantically, the way people do when they fall and want to make sure nobody saw. “Fuck, indeed,” he huffed. “Do you know how that would have looked to an agent? Get your shit together, Ciel.” 

“Fine. I’ll get my shit together right here,” he said, taking sharp intakes of air as he hobbled over to one of a dozen or so lit lanterns on the floor near the back of the room. Using the wall for support, he sank onto the ground and shook off his slipper. 

Even from where VJ stood, he could see blood had soaked through Ciel’s makeshift bandage. They winced at the same time, but when Ciel opened his book on his lap to study, VJ didn’t feel so bad leaving him there, alone. 

“We’ll get you some aspirin as soon as we get home, okay?” he offered in consolation, heading towards the stairs that led to the basement, as instructed. 

“Whatever,” he heard Ciel grumble.

The stairs were ill-lit, darker than the main floor. They were the steep, concrete kind that came without a handrail. A death trap. If it wasn’t for the faintest of lights he could make out at the bottom, he’d have turned around by the fourth step. Whispered voices grew clearer the more he descended and disquiet turned his guts into butterflies. 

Where were the sounds of a flash going off? Of a photographer giving feedback and guidance? Wasn’t there usually music at photoshoots? Something to get the model in the mood? That’s what he’d seen on television. 

“Hello?” he called out, his hand pressed to the damp, grimy wall. Ew. He shouldn’t have touched it. How was he supposed to shake hands with Blavat now? 

“Down here, Ciel,” a voice answered. A deep, gravelly voice. A voice that didn’t seem to match up with the boyish appearance of Blavat Sky on Instagram.

At the threshold, he was impelled by a visceral fear. Every warning his parents had ever given him came back to haunt him, regardless of its use in this scenario. ‘ _Don’t talk to strangers_ ’, ‘ _Look both ways before crossing the street_ ’, ‘ _Don’t go swimming immediately after eating’_ , ‘ _Listen to your instincts_ ’. The letter to his mom from Ciel burned in his pocket next to his phone. He had just enough juice to call a cab, then he and Ciel could leave and nobody need be the wiser. 

Ignoring his trembling chin, clammy skin and thundering of his heart, VJ quietly turned around to head back the way he came, when a large hand gripped him around the throat and strangled his scream. 

It was cold. 

That was the first thing VJ registered. Up along the left side of his body and face. It was so cold it almost stung, like putting your tongue to metal in the winter. 

His eyes fluttered open with considerable effort. They were heavy, like the rest of him. He pushed himself up to a sitting position, head spinning, confused. For a minute, he thought he’d been sleepwalking again, that he’d managed to make it outside onto the sidewalk. 

But the sidewalk at home was lined with street lights. It had never been this pitch-black, even at night. There weren’t any stars or moon. No oncoming vehicles with their high beams on. 

And even if he didn’t live in the most affluent neighbourhood in London, it sure as hell didn’t reek of stale urine and sickly sweet rot. He gagged as the scent filled his nostrils, put both hands to his mouth, retching once, twice, then swallowed the vomit that puffed out his cheeks. 

This made his ears pop and all of a sudden they were filled with whimpering, groaning, moaning. His neck rotated, trying to locate the source of the sound, but it was all around him, bouncing back at him much too quickly in the small space. No matter how much he blinked, his eyes wouldn’t get used to the dark. 

Dark like the stairway that led to the basement. 

“C-Ciel…” he croaked, groping clumsily around him. He made contact with something hard, rubbery, a sole of a trainer. It kicked him back. Hard. Little pink and purple lights attached to the sole blinked off and on and then they were thrown into obscurity once more.

“Don’t touch me,” the owner of the foot barked. The voice was young. Perhaps younger than him. 

“Sorry,” he blubbered, cradling his shaking hand to his chest. Sweat beaded his hairline despite the crisp frigidness. Tears spilled over, running down his face. “Where am I? Ciel? Ciel?” 

A cacophony of voices answered. 

“I don’t know where we are.” 

“I want my mummy.”

“I’m hungry.”

“I don’t feel good.” 

“I’m cold.” 

At least twenty voices. Not miserable. In misery. None of them Ciel’s. 

“Ciel,” VJ sob-whispered, retreating to the floor. He curled up on himself, bringing his arms around his knees. The tips of his fingers made contact with a knitted cap. Nobody struck him, so he touched it again, walking his digits down the strands of sweat-matted hair to a puffy parka. The body was motionless. Unresponsive. “It’s not you,” he said, until he got to the person’s feet and found a single, fuzzy slipper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'd love to hear your thoughts about the twins and about any predictions you might have! Let us know in the comments!
> 
> Thank you so much to @peekaboodesu, @amanitus and @gocaitycat for beta-ing this chapter! <3 <3

**Author's Note:**

> **The fashion industry might not eat, but we do! Feed us with kudos & comments**  
> 
> 
> Follow our fashion-centric inspiration blog on tumblr: [Feast of the Twisted Beast](https://twistedbeastfeast.tumblr.com/)


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